Paul BiyaCameroonian dictator, President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 35 years since 1982, on Wednesday, suddenly banned a planned press conference by Amnesty International in the capital Yaounde without any warning, with security forces storming the hotel where the conference was to take place and ordering globally respected activists to go away.
Amnesty said the authorities stormed the hotel in Yaounde where the conference was to take place and ordered them to lock the hall.
Amnesty International West Africa’s regional director, Alioune Tine, said the press conference was meant to call for the release of three Cameroonian students who bagged ten years in prison for sharing a joke via SMS about Boko Haram.
Tine said the students only shared a joke via SMS but the heavy sentence by the military tribunal could see them spend ten years in prison and completely destroy their future.
Amnesty said it was joining more than 310, 000 persons around the world who have called for the liberation of the Cameroonian students.
A panel of discussion on human rights abuses in Cameroon, which was meant to take place in Yaounde this afternoon, was also banned.
The authorities did not site President Biya directly as the man behind the ban, but said a local government chairman in Yaounde 1 banned the events because they were threatening public order or safety.
But to many people conversant with developments in Cameroon, such orders often come directly from the highest office in the land, the presidential palace.
The fear of the government in power might have been that Amnesty could have used the conference to call on Cameroonian authorities to respect human rights and allow opposition in a country still being ruled by decrees, and where a President can shut down Internet to subdue protests, and spends sometimes months abroad while Boko Haram is wreaking havoc in the far north.