Cameroon: Equinoxe TV panelist kidnapped, tortured moments after leaving live programme

By M.K

Barrister Fabien Kengne, a regular political analyst at Equinoxe TV’s evening programme ‘Equinoxe Soire’ was abducted, and brutally tortured yesterday, May 29, 2023.

“He was taken just moments after he left the Equinoxe headquarters by unidentified armed men. A little while later, these same individuals returned him on the spot of the arrest after he had been seriously tortured” a report on Equinoxe radio specified.

At the moment, the exact reason for this arbitrary arrest remains undisclosed.

The identities of the individuals and their motives are also unknown.

The Government in the past has employed a similar modus operandi that has left many Cameroonians confused in the face of either blatant kidnap, or a state arrest.

Recent arrests, especially on media personalities have not followed legal procedures, and have often been in the guise of kidnaps.

According to Cameroon’s criminal procedure code, article 30-38, “No bodily or psychological harm shall be caused to the person arrested. Except in the case of a felony or misdemeanour committed flagrante delicto, the
person effecting the arrest shall disclose his identity and inform the person to be arrested of
the reason for the said arrest, and where necessary, allow a third person to accompany the
person arrested in order to ascertain the place to which he is being detained… Any person arrested shall be given reasonable facilities in particular to be in contact with his family, obtain legal advice, make arrangements for his defence, consult a
doctor and receive medical treatment and take necessary steps to obtain his release on bail.”

Judging from provisions of lawful arrests from Cameroon’s Criminal Procedure Code, it can be denoted most arrests carried out by the state have been unlawful and illegal.

It is the case with the arrests of Barrister Fabien Kengne, Paul Chouta, Samuel Wazizi, Martinez Zogo and many others. Non of these cases likely carried out by Cameroon’s secret service agents fulfil any legal procedures required by the law.

It is still confusing to many, why the state would choose to go through the unorthodox means of arrests against its own citizens, who are likely to pose any resistance in the face of a legal arrest.