Cameroon Prefect Jails 29 MRC Supporters Without Trial After Kamto Verdict

under “administrative custody” for 15 days, renewable, on charges of “disturbing public order, unlawful assembly, rebellion and incitement to revolt.” The alleged offence: gathering near the Congress Palace on 4 August as the Constitutional Council delivered its verdict striking Maurice Kamto from the presidential ballot.

Inside the document

• Legal cloak: The order cites Law 90/054 of December 1990, a statute originally meant to combat organised crime but increasingly applied to silence dissent.

• Sweeping drag-net: The list of detainees ranges from party organisers such as Mepgne Ndomgo and Pentchou Raphael to rank-and-file supporters like Begohe Michel Cédric—proof that affiliation, not action, was the arrest criterion.

• Administrative custody: Unlike judicial detention, this procedure is ordered by a prefect, bypassing a magistrate and denying the accused immediate access to a lawyer or bail. It can be renewed indefinitely in 15-day blocks.

A senior police source conceded the order was finalised before individual case files reached the prosecutor—evidence, he said, of “preventive neutralisation, not prosecution.”

Political context: criminalising a hashtag

The mass sweep fulfils the threat contained in Minister Paul Atanga Nji’s 4 August “URGENT” communiqué, which promised instant arrest for any “unauthorised gathering or digital call to revolt.” On social networks, the only “call” traced to most detainees was sharing footage of police using tear gas near the Congress Palace.

Why it matters

1. Rule-by-prefect: Cameroon’s 1990 security law was written under a single-party system; resurrecting it today hollows out the multiparty façade Biya’s government likes to present.

2. Election optics: Jailing opposition militants weeks after ejecting their candidate confirms what foreign editors already headline: the 2025 race is a one-horse event padded with fear.

3. International exposure: Administrative detention contravenes the African Charter’s requirement for prompt judicial review. Each 15-day renewal will sharpen calls for targeted sanctions against officials who sign the orders.

Reactions

• MRC legal team says it has been denied entry to the central police station where the 29 are held. A habeas-corpus motion is planned, but lawyers admit a prefect’s signature often trumps a judge’s order in practice.

• Human-rights NGO REDHAC calls the move “collective punishment designed to chill any post-verdict protest.”

• Diplomatic corps: A European envoy told Cameroon Concord the crackdown “confirms that security logic, not electoral legitimacy, guides Yaoundé this season.”

The road ahead

Unless the prefect rescinds the order, the detainees will remain in limbo until 21 August—well past the deadline for opposition coalitions to re-file candidacies or appeals. Renewals could stretch custody into the full campaign period, effectively keeping street organisers off the field while state media celebrates “peaceful” rallies for the ruling CPDM.

Forty-three years into Paul Biya’s presidency, the lesson is consistent: when ballots threaten the palace, arrest warrants become the preferred campaign literature. Cameroon Concord will continue tracking every custody renewal—and every name that moves from the streets to the cellblock—until political rights are restored or broken beyond recognition.