The mutilated physique of a distinguished Cameroonian journalist was discovered on Sunday close to the capital Yaounde 5 days after he was kidnapped by unidentified assailants, the press union and a colleague stated on Sunday.
Media advocates described Martinez Zogo’s disappearance and loss of life as an extra signal of the perils of reporting within the African nation.
Zogo, the director of personal radio station Amplitude FM, was kidnapped on Jan. 17 by unknown assailants after making an attempt to enter a police station to flee his attackers, media watchdog Reporters With out Borders (RSF) stated.
Zogo had just lately been speaking on air a few case of alleged embezzlement involving a media outlet with authorities connections, RSF stated.
“Cameroonian media has simply misplaced considered one of its members, a sufferer of hatred and barbarism,” Cameroon’s journalists’ commerce union stated in an announcement. “The place is the liberty of the press, freedom of opinion and freedom of expression in Cameroon when working within the media now entails a mortal danger?”
His colleague, Charlie Amie Tchouemou, editor-in-chief of Amplitude FM, confirmed Zogo’s loss of life and his abduction. The police and the federal government didn’t reply to requires remark.
The incident is the most recent in a string of assaults towards journalists in Cameroon, which has a vibrant press and which is dominated by President Paul Biya, who has a decades-long document of repressing opposition.
Cameroon is considered one of many international locations throughout the continent, from Burkina Faso to Ethiopia to Equatorial Guinea, the place journalists complain that media freedoms are underneath risk from authoritarian governments.
“Though Cameroon has one of many richest media landscapes in Africa, it is among the continent’s most harmful international locations for journalists, who function in a hostile and precarious surroundings,” RSF says in its Cameroon nation profile.
Radio France Internationale reporter Ahmed Abba was arrested in July 2015 and imprisoned for 2 years on terrorism costs that rights teams denounced as a sham. Outspoken reporter Paul Chouta, who labored for personal information web site Cameroon Net, was overwhelmed and stabbed by unknown attackers in 2019.