In Cameroon, journalists are being jailed for ‘fake news’
DOUALA, CAMEROON — In Cameroon, where English-speaking separatists are fighting the largely French-speaking government to establish a new nation, journalists covering the violence are increasingly finding themselves behind bars on a surprising charge: fake news.
The latest case centers on the killing of an American missionary from Indiana, who was shot dead 12 days after his family moved to this central African country in October. In the immediate aftermath of his death, in one of the country’s unstable regions, Cameroonian journalist Mimi Mefo Takambou sought to find out who killed him.
But after she cited social media reports that claimed the Cameroonian military had shot Charles Wesco, she was accused of publishing fake news online and later arrested.
Mefo, who works for Equinoxe TV, is one of more than a dozen journalists who have been jailed or questioned this year in Cameroon, a once-peaceful country that is spiraling into civil war in its English-speaking regions.
As of early December, seven journalists were in custody — four for reporting false news, the three others for a variety of charges, including embezzlement and defamation, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Two of the journalists were later released, but Cameroon remains the secondleading jailer of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa after Eritrea, CPJ said.