04 Apr 19 | Awards, Fellowship, Fellowship 2019, News and features
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My name is Mimi Mefo Takambou. I hail from the conflict-hit North West region, and from the French-speaking west region of Cameroon.
I have become one of the most persecuted journalists in Cameroon due to my constant reporting on the civil war that has ripped the English-speaking community apart.
The regime there has been using anti-terror and cybercrime laws to intimidate, threaten, and silence the media.
I stopped publishing information on Facebook and my website for several months because of constant threats and intimidation. But I continue to report.
Since 2017, at least 20 journalists have been arrested and jailed in Cameroon for doing their jobs. I call on the government to drop all charges against them.
One of the most challenging moments of my career was in November 2018 when I was arrested, handcuffed and imprisoned for reporting the killing of an American missionary. I was released four days later following unprecedented national and international mobilization.
As we speak, the crisis in Cameroon remains highly under-reported: journalists are not guaranteed safety when travelling to conduct investigations, and access to information is a major problem. A government which imprisons a journalist is weak, scared of being exposed.
But the response from other journalists when I was arrested tells me that others are still prepared to speak out.
So this award is not just for me, but also for others who continue to stand up for press freedom.
It is a reminder that I must continue to work with objectivity and balance and continue to be a voice for the voiceless.
It will also give me more power to advocate for press freedom and for the release of my colleagues in jail.
Thank you for your support.
Full profile: #IndexAwards2019: Mimi Mefo works without fear or favour in Cameroon’s climate of repression and self-censorship[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”10″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1554466599889-be00baea-53b9-9″ taxonomies=”8935″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
28 Mar 19 | Awards, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/aRODwaISqKo”][vc_column_text]Mimi Mefo is one of less than a handful of journalists working without fear or favour in Cameroon’s climate of repression and self-censorship. An award-winning broadcast journalist at private media house Equinoxe TV and Radio, Mefo is courageous in her commitment to the truth, journalistic integrity and freedom of expression.
Through broadcast reports, social media and a newly founded website, Mefo informs Cameroonians about the escalating violence in the country’s western regions, in a conflict that has become known as the “Anglophone Crisis”. The conflict has caused hundreds of deaths, including civilians, and has exacerbated the already critical condition of media freedom.
The Cameroonian government has long been a direct threat to the press and has recently intimidated and arrested journalists accusing them of supporting terrorists. Between January 2017 and November 2018, at least 15 journalists were detained. Four are still behind bars.
At the same time, the separatist movement has also grown increasingly intolerant to critical media, and journalists like Mefo have been caught in a double-barrelled threat. Mefo has herself been followed home by mysterious cars and faced intimidation, online harassment and imprisonment.
Her job might be under threat, too, as her employer is coming under growing government pressure because of her defiant line. Equinoxe has already been temporarily forced off the air by Cameroonian police in the past, and now faces new threats of sanctions for Mefo’s coverage of the crisis. Her boss has been questioned by government officials, who complained about her reporting and told him she needs to be “reined in”.
Mefo has denounced the harassment of other Cameroonian journalists and used her digital media to inform the public about the abuses and amplify campaigns calling for the release of those jailed.
Her impact has been tangible: one of her tweets denouncing the poor health of journalist Thomas Awah Junior in prison was shared widely, and only then was he allowed to receive treatment. She was also behind the social media campaign that led to the release of Josiane Kouagheu and Mathias Mouende Ngamo hours after they were arrested on 21 and 27 October.
In September 2018 she founded her own website, Mimi Mefo Info, where she publishes updates from her reporting on the ground. After she published reports that the military was behind the death of an American missionary, she was arrested on 7 November on charges of “publishing and propagating information that infringes on the territorial integrity of the Republic of Cameroon”. A social media campaign and pressure from Equinoxe and international organisations were able to secure her release on 10 November. Mefo resumed reporting immediately.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”104691″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2019/01/awards-2019/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards exist to celebrate individuals or groups who have had a significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1553854718059-c3a931fd-6c29-7″ taxonomies=”26925″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
05 Feb 18 | Africa, Cameroon, Global Journalist, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This article is part of Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist’s Project Exile series, which has published interviews with exiled journalists from around the world.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”97724″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Charles Atangana knows as well as anyone the challenges of being a journalist in Cameroon.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Atangana was an investigative reporter covering economic issues for the now-defunct La Sentinelle as well as Le Messager, Cameroon’s first independent newspaper, and frequently pursued articles about government mismanagement and corruption in the central African nation.
There was much to cover in Cameroon, which ranks 145th out of 176 countries on Transparency International’s most recent Corruption Perceptions Index. His reporting on the lack of transparency in government oil revenues ran on the front-page for three consecutive days and a separate story on bribery in school admissions implicated the country’s then minister of education.
His reporting wasn’t welcomed by the government of President Paul Biya, who has ruled the country since 1982 and frequently jailed journalists critical of his government. In 2004, Atangana helped organize a press conference for the Southern Cameroons National Council, a group supporting independence for Cameroon’s English-speaking minority in the country’s southwest. During the event, Atangana was kidnapped and taken to a military detention center in Douala, Cameroon’s largest city, where he was beaten and tortured by captors demanding to know who his government sources were.
Atangana says that from the way he was interrogated, he believes that his arrest was ordered by the education minister, Joseph Owona, a longtime Biya loyalist who went on to become head of Cameroon’s soccer federation. Owona did not respond to messages seeking comment. Reached via Facebook, his son, Mathias Eric Owona Nguini, denied his father’s involvement in Atangana’s arrest, writing that some journalists “want to justify their exile by trying to get political asylum even with false data.”
Atangana was able to escape from prison with the help of family, and knew he could no longer remain safely in Cameroon. He eventually made his way to the United Kingdom, where after a lengthy struggle, he was granted asylum.
Today Atangana lives in Glasgow, Scotland, where he is a freelance journalist. He spoke with Global Journalist’s Ailean Beaton about being tortured, sneaking out of Cameroon, and the challenge of winning asylum in the U.K. Below, an edited version of their interview:
Global Journalist: What first attracted you to journalism?
Atangana: From the age of six, we had a classroom activity to encourage those of us who could read a newspaper to tear out a story from the weekend that interested us and then stick it up on the wall. Our teacher called it the “wallpaper journal.”
[In college] I joined the press club. We would sometimes receive journalists who had worked on the radio to come in and speak to us and try to give us the basics of journalism.
I wasn’t very interested in the job at that time because these guys who came to visit the college and explain what journalism is… they weren’t rich guys. The way they dressed- it wasn’t impressive. But my mind changed after growing up. I would sometimes see journalists walking around with a camera. It seemed exciting, all of a sudden.
GJ: How did you end up focusing on economic investigations?
Atangana: When I started my journalism career no one was really interested in economic issues. Whenever you would see such stories it was usually just the press release from the government for IMF funding… No one was focused on investigating; trying to work out what was behind the figures.
I had received corporate training from the World Bank, where I used to work. So myself and some colleagues from state media, we decided to create a group of economic journalists.
We were sick of seeing announcements of projects from the government saying things like: “We are going to build 600 classrooms in provinces across Cameroon.”
And once the money had been taken and the work had been done there was nobody to travel across the country to check– because if you did, you’d find only maybe five or 10 had been built, and the money had all been spent.
GJ: How would you describe the pressures that journalists face in Cameroon?
Atangana: When a journalist writes critically of government figures they might get approached while they are out drinking and get offered a bribe.
They might ask you to soften your writing and maybe put some honey in there about a government minister or someone else. A journalist in Cameroon does not make very much money and so this can be an effective way [of silencing them]. But other times there’s threats or beatings.
GJ: What were you working on that caught the government’s attention?
Atangana: One time my story ran on the front page for three days. It was a story concerning the government’s transparency surrounding their oil revenues and how the World Bank had made them promise to be clear with how that money was moving around in exchange for a large loan.
The story was that for the first time, the government had been pushed down to their knees. The World Bank had said we will give you the money but only if the government published their figures related to the oil flow.
I also worked on a story where I showed that some of the administrators at the colleges were taking bribes from parents so as to admit their children. Some of these people were quite close to the Education Minister.
GJ: What were you doing on the day you got detained?
Atangana: I had just introduced the speakers at a conference and I was called outside. I was confronted by three men who were dressed as journalists, though as it turns out they were not. One of them said to me: “Charles, we’ve followed your writing, we’ve seen your appearances on TV.”
And they began to hit me; first slapping my left cheek and then my right before kicking me down to the ground.
I was taken to the military police cell in Douala- a place where they usually kept serious trouble makers, so I suppose that made me one of them. I was there for a couple of weeks and nobody knew where I had went.
I picked up from the questions they were asking that it was the education minister who had ordered my arrest.
GJ: What did they want from you?
Atangana: I was asked about my sources. That was the main thing they wanted to know: who in government was giving me my information. I had very good contacts in government committees- education, health, finance and in the military– and it was clear to them from my reporting that somebody had been giving me private information.
The second night was painful because I was beaten properly. I remember, the first night I had slept on the floor in my underwear but on the second night they made me sleep without my underwear. They were using wires tied around my genitals to try and put pressure on me to reveal my sources.
I was taught to always protect my sources. When I was a student we had a journalist from Washington come to speak with us. She told us that we must protect our sources at any cost.
The choice was this: reveal my sources and destroy my reputation or die protecting them.
GJ: So how did you escape?
Atangana: After two weeks I realized that this was my end. It was easy for them to kill me- nobody knew where I was. They were feeding me so poorly I got diarrhea, so I asked them to take me to hospital. There, I met a guy who was about to get released and he had a phone. I managed to tell this guy to get word out to my Dad.
I was with somebody from the military police, but he didn’t know who I was or why I was there and so I promised him money. He allowed me to go out to the car park [where my father was waiting].
My sister has a friend who travels to France on business and I managed to organize a journey with him.
GJ: How difficult was it to get asylum in the U.K.?
Atangana: The first few years were very difficult. It took me a couple of months to recover from the ordeal and I started to come back to life.
I feel the discrimination in the asylum system in the UK is strong. You are spending all your time speaking to people in organizations about a country where nobody among the staff has ever been. It was very difficult.
I was arrested in 2008 [in the U.K.] because it appeared my asylum claim was rejected. They didn’t believe I was a real journalist or that I was under threat.
We spoke to an old colleague from the World Bank, he sent a statement. A colleague from Le Messager did the same. The National Union of Journalists in Scotland helped a lot and the Committee to Protect Journalists in the U.S. also wrote about me and forwarded a statement on the situation of press freedom in Cameroon.
There was a public campaign and a petition with over 7,000 signatures that we sent to the Home Office. All of this allowed me to get released and I was granted [asylum] in 2011 after seven years in limbo… seven years of fighting.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/tOxGaGKy6fo”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist is a website that features global press freedom and international news stories as well as a weekly radio program that airs on KBIA, mid-Missouri’s NPR affiliate, and partner stations in six other states. The website and radio show are produced jointly by professional staff and student journalists at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, the oldest school of journalism in the United States. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook) and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”6″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”2″ element_width=”12″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1516872643203-6b958ecf-7eea-6″ taxonomies=”22142″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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