Jean Marie Ngong Song, a Cameroonian journalist and a correspondent for the German news Deutsche Welle, in Bamenda, Cameroon’s restive North west region the country’s Anglophone area, was severely been beaten by soldiers and is reported to be receiving treatment for his injuries. He is experiencing serious pain and also suffering hearing difficulties after the incident. The journalist was beaten on Sunday by the soldiers after attending a meeting in the community. He was quoted saying that he had sat for three hours in the meeting and only when they had decided to lower their face masks to their chin to breathe for a few seconds and after he stepped out, he was attacked. Alone.
Jean Maries added that his identification documents were seized by the soldiers and his person was forced into a military vehicle. “I was beaten, my identity card collected. They asked me to go and enter their car, I asked them to tell me what crime I committed. They didn’t. I entered a taxi and left. They interviewed my friends and….they only sent my ID card later,” the Cameroonian journalist narrated. Jean-Marie Ngong Song “is in serious pain with hearing difficulties”, according to the Cameroon Journalists’ Trade Union.
Reporting in Cameroon is very hazardous to a lot of journalist and harassment and attacks are not rare citing, these attacks and harassment in Cameroon’s English-speaking heartlands of the North-West and South-West regions started in 2016. Both English and French are official languages in Cameroon following a complicated colonial history but in practice, the Francophone majority dominates, leading the Anglophone minority to complain of discrimination. Authorities have clamped down on the media’s coverage of the unrest which were triggered by moves by separatists in Anglophone Cameroon to seek independence. Thousands have died from the violence and crackdown of activities in this region for months now.