ttempts
to actively harass and silence human rights defenders from the MDDHL and other
human rights organizations have been ongoing in Cameroon.
You can go to your hotel since we know that we have all your papers with us.
On 27 August 2001 Abdoulaye Math was arrested in Ngaoundéré, Northern Cameroon, by officials of the National Center for External Research. He was taken to a Police station and was forced to undress by a superior officer (Commissaire de police) who also confiscated all the documents he had on him. In spite of protests the documents were not restituted.
On 29 October 2001, the office of the MDDHL in Hardé, Maroua, North Cameroon, was vandalized and important documents were stolen from it together with written testimonies from victims of human rights violations.
The latest incident happened Jan 16, 2002 when Abdoulaye Math was traveling to Dublin, Ireland, where he was to speak on the human rights situation in Cameroon at the international Platform for Human Rights Defenders, attended among others by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, the United Nations Special Reporter on Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani, and the Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.
After his arrest, Abdoulaye Math was taken to a police station where he was detained for five hours and his passport and all the documents he had on him were confiscated. He was released at around 1:00 am by a police officer who told him that ''You can go to your hotel since we know that we have all your papers with us''. He pleaded for his papers to be returned to no avail. Despite appeals by human rights defenders in the region and Amnesty International for the respect of human rights by security forces, the Cameroonian government has failed to take any action.
(From Amnesty International)