Cameroonian journalists are marking World Press Freedom Day with protests against abuse from the government as well as from rebels fighting for an independent English-speaking state. “The separatists think that we have not been doing much to project their independence ideology, and that is why our reporters in the field are targeted. I have not gone out of Yaoundé [to the English-speaking North-West and South-West regions] since 2017 that [when] the crisis metamorphosed into an armed conflict because they have openly called to tell me that I am a target. We receive calls from top government officials who say we are a newspaper that is working for the separatists,” he said.Cameroon’s government did not issue a statement on for World Press Freedom Day, as there were no public ceremonies due to COVID-19. However, the government has always maintained that there is press freedom in Cameroon and journalists are only arrested when they act unprofessionally.Jude Viban, president of the Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalists said the government should decriminalize media offenses and make sure abuses against the rights of journalists by government officials and separatist fighters are stopped.”What we are doing is to inform, and we do so for the interest of the population, so a handful of people should not attack the press. When stories are not told because journalists are under attack, the population would not be informed, which, of course, is their right to be informed in a democracy like ours,” said Viban.Reporters Without Borders says press freedom continues its long decline in Cameroon, and reporters continue to be subjected to threats, attacks, intimidation and arrests after President Paul Biya’s reelection for a seventh term in October 2018.
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