When Anglophone activists are denied justice!.

But is this the case in practice in Cameroon? Take the case of the murder of Yaounde-based radio journalist, Martinez Zogo. In less than two months since the suspects including flamboyant media owner and business tycoon, Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, were arrested in the early hours of February 6, as suspects.

Amougou Belinga was transferred from the State Secretariat for Defense, SED to Kondengui Prison in Yaounde on Saturday March 4. This was as confirmed by Arielle Zamo Belinga, Spokesperson of Groupe L’Anecdote which is owned by Amougou Belinga.

He is said to have been charged with "complicity to torture". It should be noted that the journalist was reportedly brutally tortured to death. The Guardian Post cannot but give kudos to the investigators for expediting the investigation.

Nonetheless, what is worrying in the interest of justice and fair play is why other matters in connection to the bloody conflict in the North West and South West regions have not been treated with the same speed and urgency.

The latest example is that of a North West-based peace activist and Moslem scholar, Abdul Karim Ali.

London-based Amnesty International in a statement this week raised alarmed about his "arbitrarily detention without charge since 11 August 2022".

The human rights defenders pointed out that "while the authorities have provided no formal reason for his detention, he was interrogated repeatedly about a video he made on 9 July 2022. In the video, he had reportedly denounced what he said are military excesses on civilians. If this is the basis for his detention, it is a violation of his right to freedom of expression".

The statement added that his "friends have also been taken into detention alongside him since then" and called on the Cameroonian authorities to either charge the three men with a recognisable criminal offence or immediately release them.

At this daily newspaper, we do not the claim the Amnesty International release to be gospel truth. What is however without quibble is that Karim is known to have been arrested since August. In early November last year, there were credible media reports that he had been transferred from Bamenda to Yaounde.

“Mr Abdul was ferried to Yaounde today with his nephew Rabiu. They left at about 4pm to SED,” Tifuh Ochard Nkeng, defense lawyer for Abdul Karim told reporters without further details.

There were however speculations that he was accused of promoting acts of terrorism. But his lawyers said the accusations “are trumped up charges they bring up once and again. He does not do anything in hiding and his work has nothing to do with the armed struggle.”

The scholar, he noted, has like any other patriotic citizen been trying to do what he can at his own level to bring peace. The charges, Barrister Tifuh believes, are similar to other government actions regarding the armed conflict: “they are systematic so that they can pounce on the people …”

Amnesty however said he has not been charged. If the human rights defenders are to be believed, Karim's case will not be an isolated example.

Former Assistant Supreme Court prosecutor, Ayah Paul Abine, is known to have been arrested in January 2017 and released from prison by a presidential decree on August 30, 2017.

This was after spending more than eight months in detention. During those months, he said, there was no charge against him and he was never told his crime.

The few examples have been on the national and international media focus just because they are high-profile activists. Others, less popular are in prisons awaiting charges.

Does justice not demand that before somebody is arrested, let alone detained, he should be suspected of committing a specified crime? Does speeding up investigations in the case of the murder of Martinez Zogo, which is applauded anyway, and delaying that of Karim, for instance, not give the impression of discriminatory or selective investigations and delay of justice which is unjust?

This daily joins Amnesty International to call on the judiciary to charge Karim and others or release them if there is no serious offence that they have committed.

This is especially given the stress his relatives and friends go through travelling to Yaounde to visit him. Presumption of innocence should be the letter and spirit of the law in any democratic country.

The Gaurdian Newspaper