YAOUNDE: Police in Cameroon Monday forcefully stopped several hundred journalists from staging a demonstration on world press freedom day to call attention to the recent death of an editor held in detention.
Some police wielded billy clubs at the demonstrators as they tried to reach a planned sit-in in front of the prime minister’s office in Yaounde, an AFP correspondent at the scene reported.
Between 200 and 300 people had heeded the call of the Cameroon Journalists’ Union to mark the occasion of press freedom day by protesting the death of Bibi Ngota, managing editor of the Cameroon Express, who died last month in Kondengui prison in Yaounde.
The government said he died of an infection linked to the HIV virus, which the editor’s family has rejected.
Ngota had been jailed in March on fraud charges and media rights group charged that he was denied medical attention for prior problems with high blood pressure and a slipped disc.
Police blocked Monday’s protest because the journalists had not given proper notice of a public rally, said a city official Martin Motassi, a claim the journalists’ union denied.
In the end the protesters staged a sit-in at the street intersection where they were stopped by the police, waving banners saying "Free all the journalists still in prison!".
"I am enraged by such brutality when we wanted to hold a peaceful demonstration. The police hit me with their clubs, I lost my jacket with my passport and money," said Polycarpe Essomba, a Cameroonian correspondent for Radio France Internationale (RFI).
The Cameroon government says it has ordered a judicial inquiry into Ngota’s death after calls for investigation by France, the United States, UNESCO and several media watchdog organizations.
Ngota was charged with fraud and using forged documents along with Serge Sabouang and Robert Mintsa, respectively the managing editors of La Nation and Le Devoir.
The three had allegedly copied the signature of President Paul Biya’s secretary general, Laurent Esso, on documents "which they used to blackmail him" in a bid to obtain money, authorities said.
