Director of Private Radio Amplitude FM, Martinez Zogo was removed on January 17 and his body was found naked and mutilated on January 22 at 15 kilometers north of Yaoundé.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
The International NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) asked the Cameroonian authorities on Friday, January 27, to conduct an “independent investigation” and “transparent” on the murder of Martinez Zogo, a popular journalist kidnapped and then found dead on Sunday January 22 a mutilated body.
He was the Director General of Private Radio Amplitude FM, based in Yaoundé, and the star host of a daily program, “traffic jam”, in which he regularly denounced business and corruption in this country of Central Africa directed with an iron fist for over forty years by the same man, Paul Biya, and his Almighty Party.
removed on January 17 by strangers in the suburbs of the capital in front of a gendarmerie post, Arsène Salomon Mbani Zogo, known as “Martinez”, 50, had been found dead five days later. “His body obviously suffered important abuse,” announced the government.
“Martinez Zogo was a journalist who took great risks to burst the truth about corruption,” said Lewis Mudge, director for Central Africa in HRW. “His heinous murder sends a scary message to all other journalists from Cameroon. The Cameroonian authorities should conduct a quick and impartial investigation so that the assassins of Zogo can be brought to justice,” he continues. On the air, this journalist did not hesitate to question the important personalities, political world as well as business.
The government has announced “surveys to find and translate the authors of this odious crime to justice” and assured that “Cameroon is a rule of law where freedoms are guaranteed, including press freedom”.
On March 9, 2022, Paul Chouta, reporter of the private online media Cameroon Web, critic of power, had been removed 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 covered blood conflict Between the police and English-speaking armed separatist groups as well as corruption affairs.
The government had taken a long time to admit his death in prison for a long time, but said he had succumbed to a generalized infection. The International NGO Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) had assured, it has consulted photos on which Mr. Wazizi presented many injuries on different parts of the body. According to the latest RSF ranking on press freedom, Cameroon occupies the 118