YAOUNDE, Cameroon
A military tribunal in Cameroon has jailed dozens of opposition supporters for terms of up to seven years for "rebellion", their party's deputy secretary general said Monday.
The 47 defendants were arrested in September
2020 as Maurice Kamto's Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) and several
other parties planned protests against the government of Paul Biya, in power
for nearly 40 years in the central African country.
Police dispersed hundreds of protesters in the
economic capital Douala and made more than 500 arrests across the country. Of
those, 124 remain in detention, according to the MRC.
Paul Biya |
The rest were given terms of between one and
five years, he said.
The charges included "rebellion" and
"attempted insurrection", according to MRC vice president Emmanuel
Simh.
In September, a group of around 50 lawyers said
they would not mount a defence for around 100 detained opposition members,
denouncing what they described as the arbitrary and illegal nature of their
detention.
Kamto -- runner-up to Biya in a 2018
presidential election -- was imprisoned in January 2019 following a march
protesting the vote during which he presented himself as
"president-elect".
Following international pressure, Biya ordered
him freed nine months.
The government has said that those held since
September 2020 face charges of "attempted insurrection" or
"revolution".
Some have already been convicted.
Two months after their arrest, Amnesty
International accused the Biya government of "relentless repression of
opposition" members characterised by "arbitrary arrests and
detentions".
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