MRC press release

The Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) informs the national and international opinion that its president Maurice KAMTO and allies have again appeared on the 2nd April 2019 in front of the president of the Court of Appeal of the Centre Region ruling on immediate release.

The CRM expresses its consternation and strong protests over the way in which habeas corpus proceedings of President-elect Maurice KAMTO, our allies and supporters are carried out both in high court and in the court of appeal. Indeed, the habeas corpus proceeding, borrowed from Common Law, is exclusively public. Therefore, the defence has demanded public hearings that the Regime refuses in its strategy of shutting down our comrades and allies for fear that they will reveal to national and international opinion, the extent of inhuman and degrading treatment suffered during their arrest, custody and detention; atrocities of a medieval age; serious attacks on human dignity.

It is in this context that the hearings of the 2nd April took place, once again, in a cramped office, the public and the press kept at bay by a heavily armed squad. This did not prevent the judges from holding these hearings in the absence of the counsels and the applicants who keep requesting public hearings. Thus, the Court of Appeal, in the absence of the counsels and the applicants whose contradictory participation is the guarantee of a fair justice, adjourned the judgment for the 9th April 2019.

The CRM rejects all pending decisions in the high court and the Court of appeal which, in this context, will be only the result of instructions dictated to a biased and compliant judicial system openly violating national laws and international instruments duly ratified by Cameroon.

The CRM points out, to condemn it, the militarization of courts and tribunals resulting in a justice rendered in secret and under bayonets.

In any case, the CRM maintains its demand for the immediate and unconditional release of its leader, its allies and all its supporters and sympathizers detained as political prisoners by the regime in power.