The international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday January 27 asked the Cameroonian authorities to carry out an "independent" and "transparent" investigation into the murder of Martinez Zogo, a popular journalist kidnapped and then found dead on Sunday January 22 with a mutilated body. .
He was the general manager of the private radio station Amplitude FM, based in Yaoundé, and the star host of a daily program, "Embouteillage", in which he regularly denounced racketeering and corruption in this Central African country. with an iron fist for more than forty years by the same man, Paul Biya, and his all-powerful party.
Abducted on January 17 by unknown persons in the suburbs of the capital in front of a gendarmerie post, Arsène Salomon Mbani Zogo, known as "Martinez", 50, was found dead five days later. "His body has obviously suffered significant abuse," the government said.
"Martinez Zogo was a journalist who took great risks to expose the truth about corruption," Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at HRW, said in a statement. “His heinous murder sends a chilling message to all other journalists in Cameroon. Cameroonian authorities should conduct a prompt and impartial investigation so that Zogo's killers can be brought to justice,” he continues. On the air, this journalist did not hesitate to question by name important personalities, from the political and business worlds.
Journalist assaulted, another killed in custody
The government announced "investigations to find and bring to justice the perpetrators of this heinous crime" and assured that "Cameroon is a State of law where freedoms are guaranteed, including freedom of the press".
On March 9, 2022, Paul Chouta, a reporter for the private online media Cameroon Web, a critic of power, was kidnapped by several men and violently attacked before being left for dead on the side of the road.
In August 2019, journalist Samuel Wazizi of the private television channel Chillen Muzik and TV (CMTV) died in detention ten months after being arrested in Buea, in the west of the country, where he was covering a bloody conflict between the forces. order and English-speaking armed separatist groups as well as corruption cases.
The government had been slow to publicly admit his death in prison, but claimed he succumbed to a widespread infection. The international NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) assured that it had consulted photos in which Mr. Wazizi showed numerous injuries on different parts of his body. According to the latest RSF press freedom ranking, Cameroon ranks 118th out of 180 countries.
