Reporters Without Borders condemn ban on The Post Newspaper

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the recent ban and suspension heaped on one of Cameroon’s most renowned Newspapers, The Post, last week.

The newspaper was banned from operating and circulating in the South West Region on Monday, September 12, and suspended nationwide for one month, after an unpublished front page of the paper reported that 66 percent of Cameroonians wanted a military coup.

In a tweet yesterday, RSF said the ban was arbitrary and abusive and that it must be lifted urgently.

“RSF denounces an abusive & arbitrary sanction which must be lifted,” RSF wrote.

In a release banning The Post on September 12, the Governor of the South West Region, Bernard Okalia Bilai, accused the paper of “flagrant violation of professional norms governing mass communication”.

Two days after the Governor’s ban, the National Communication Council (NCC) slammed a one-month suspension on the paper and its publisher for letting the coup story slip out of its editorial room.

The NCC also accused the paper of violating professional norms of objective and responsible journalism.

In a release, The Post’s management explained that the front page slipped out of its newsroom before it could be finalised, and went on to circulate what was meant to be the authentic front page of the newspaper for that edition.

The paper said it never intended to cause any harm or undermine national interest and public law and order, as authorities claimed.

 The Afrobarometer survey on military coups, which The Post reported on, was conducted in 2021/2022 and it suggests that 53% of Africans are willing to endorse military intervention if elected leaders abuse their power.

According to the survey, 66 percent of Cameroonian respondents stood for a military coup while 31% were against it and 3% were neutral.

The Post’s publication, which was never printed, created panic among Cameroon’s ruling elite owing to several military coups that have occurred in African countries lately, including neighboring Gabon.

President Paul Biya, who has been in power for more than 40 years now, reshuffled military leadership in the country just after President Ali Bongo was overthrown in Gabon.

By Amina Hilda