Barrister Edward Lyonga Ewule told Cameroon-info.net that their application for “Habeas Corpus” will be heard in Suit. No. HCF/HB/002/19 with the Attorney General of the South West Court of Appeal and the Commander of the 21^st Motorized Infantry Battalion in Buea expected to appear as respondents.

The lawyer in an “affidavit in support of motion exparte for accelerated hearing” dated August 23, 2019 regretted that since August 13, 2019 when the matter was filed and brought to the attention of His Lordship the President of the Honorable Court, the court had delayed to give a return date.

Barrister Ewule said “Journalist Samuel Wazizi has neither been seen or heard of whether by his family or his counsel”, adding that, “Journalist Samuel Wazizi has now been held incommunicado for over 20 days without access to family and counsel.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, said Tuesday, August 13, 2019 that Cameroonian authorities should immediately release without charge pidgin news anchor Samuel Wazizi.

Police arrested Wazizi 23 days ago and handed him over to the military, which has since held him without access to his lawyer or family in Buea, the capital of the country’s English-speaking South West Region, according to his lawyer Barrister Edward Lyonga Ewule.

CPJ writes that Wazizi, popularly known as “Halla Ya Matta”, works for the Buea-based independent station Chillen Muzik and Television (CMTV). His lawyer says he was arrested on August 2 and was initially held at the Muea police station, according to his lawyer.

According to a statement posted on CMTV’s Facebook page on August 6, Wazizi was picked up at 11:00 a.m. August 2 by elements of the Muea police who “claimed that he was being invited by their boss to get information about a certain ‘pidgin news.’” CPJ could not confirm the exact location of his arrest in Muea.

According to the CMTV statement, the police said Wazizi was detained in connection “to the Anglophone armed conflict of which investigation is still going,” and the police refused to allow his colleagues to see him in detention, writes CPJ.

The conflict between security forces and separatist fighters seeking a breakaway nation called Ambazonia in the two English-speaking North West and South West Regions has escalated over the past year, according to news reports.

The allegations

Ewule told CPJ that Wazizi was accused of “collaborating with separatists” and “spreading separatist information,” but has not been formally charged. Ewule said a statement was taken without the presence of a lawyer, although he was later given access to his client, who was also able to see his family while in police custody. Ewule said his client’s phone was searched and, according to the police, “separatist messages” were found. However, “having such information is part of his journalism job,” said the lawyer.

CPJ Condemnation

“Authorities must stop trying to force journalists like Samuel Wazizi to toe the government line about the separatist conflict in Cameroon by harassing and intimidating them through illegal detentions and flagrant violations of the rule of law,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ Africa program coordinator. “The fact that Wazizi is being detained by the military, which has no jurisdiction to investigate terrorism-related charges, also raises serious questions about due process and the journalist’s safety. He must be released immediately with no condition.”

Wazizi was denied bail because police said his case related to potential charges under the anti-terrorism law, Ewule told CPJ. He was informed on August 6 that Wazizi would be handed over to the judicial police, the competent authority to investigate, but instead his client was transferred the next day to the military’s 21st Motorized Infantry Battalion in Buea, Ewule said. Wazizi has since been held without access to a lawyer or family, Ewule told CPJ.

Habeas Corpus

Ewule told CPJ that he filed a habeas corpus application in the Fako Division of the High Court in Buea to force authorities to either produce Wazizi in court and justify his detention, or order the journalist’s release.

In the application, which was reviewed by CPJ, Ewule said Wazizi had denied all the allegations and “believed he was being detained in connection with his critical views he expressed during the pidgin English news program on CMTV which is strictly connected to the practice of his profession as a journalist, and this I strongly believe as a fact.”  

Cameroon is the third worst jailer of journalists in Africa, after Egypt and Eritrea, with at least seven journalists behind bars for their work on December 1, 2018, according to CPJ's annual prison census. CPJ published a special report in 2017 about Cameroon’s abuse of overly broad anti-terror legislation to crack down on critical reporting and to stifle dissent.