Police in Cameroon have arrested 38 supporters of opposition leader Maurice Kamto at a rally protesting the result of last month’s presidential election, his party said Monday.

Official results of the October 7 ballot declared President Paul Biya, who has ruled the west African country since 1982, the winner with 71 percent of the vote.
Kamto was a distant second with 14 percent. But Kamto, candidate for the Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC), rejected the result, claiming widespread fraud.

OUTLAW
One of seven candidates who had sought to unseat the 85-year-old Biya, Kamto has been declared an “outlaw” by the government.

A senior MRC official, Emmanuel Simh, said 38 people were arrested on Sunday during protests in the western town of Bafoussam.

Authorities and witnesses on Sunday had given a figure of 19 arrests. MRC members had announced they planned to stage a protest in Bafoussam against what they called the election “hold-up”.

“After having been repressed with rare violence during their peaceful march, they were subjected to even harsher arrests,” Kamto’s spokesman Olivier Nissack said on his Facebook page.

REPORTER
He vowed that “peaceful national resistance” will continue.

Late Saturday, a journalist from the daily Le Messager, Joseph Olinga, was arrested in Bafoussam, the director of the paper, Jean Francois Channon, said in a statement.

He was “abused, humiliated, dragged on the ground for several metres (yards), before being taken into a police van,” Channon said, condemning the “unwarranted violence”.

Kamto’s supporters plan several more demonstrations in Cameroon and overseas on Tuesday.

Voting in the presidential election was disrupted in Francophone Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions, where a separatist movement has sparked a brutal crackdown.

AFP

Now that you are here

The Cameroon Concord News Group Board wishes to inform its faithful readers that for more than a decade, it has been providing world-class reports of the situation in Southern Cameroons.  The Board has been priding itself on its reports which have helped the world to gain a greater understanding of the crisis playing out in Southern Cameroons. It hails its reporters who have also helped the readers to have a broader perspective of the political situation in Cameroon.

The Board wishes to thank its readers who have continued to trust Southern Cameroon’s leading news platform. It is therefore using this opportunity to state that its reporters are willing to provide more quality information to the readers.    However, due to the changing global financial context, the Board is urging its readers to play a significant role in the financing of the news organization.  It is therefore calling on its faithful readers to make whatever financial contribution they can to ensure they get the latest developments in their native Southern Cameroons, in particular, and Cameroon in general.

Bank transaction: Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Banking IBAN: GB51 BARC 2049 1103 9130 15

Swift BIC BARC GB22XX

SORT CODE 20-49-11, ACCOUNT NUMBER – 03913015 Barclay PLC, UK

The Board looks forward to hearing from the readers.

Signed by the Group Chairman on behalf of the Board of Directors

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Email: soteragbawebai@gmail.com