As it enters its fith weeks, the Anglophone minority of Cameroon are experiencing a punitive shutdown of internet services ordered by the oppressive Cameroonian regime in Yaoundé. This illegal shutdown of internet services to these Cameroonian provinces, which represent 20% of the population, are in clear violation of the United Nations human rights charter because internet rights are human rights guaranteed through freedom of speech and freedom of association.

This government ordered illegal shutdown came about as lawyers and students’ strike is escalating into violence due to the government repression and brutality. Cameroonians lawyers and the students have the right to strike but are now branded «secessionist» for doing so by a «democratic» government which only appreciate any forms of dissent as a biopolitical threat to its survival.1

As its incompetence and corruption are now legendary, no one is surprised that the Cameroonian’s government had not had the time to contemplate the long term effects of this internet disruption which include the political radicalization of English speaking Cameroonians and the possibility of a real secession given that oppressed people have the right to remove the chains of oppression that are blocking their God given rights.

It is well known that the Cameroonian political class, exemplified by the Speaker of the National Assembly, Djibril Cavaye Yeguie, are on record for their great dislike of social media which in practice is a dislike of free speech and free association that they always seek to criminalize with criminal penalties and even jail time.2 However, no government in our modern political age can succeed in crushing civil disobedience by compromising ordinary people basic natural rights such as freedom of speech and association through blind and brutal repression. Consequently, the Charlatans advising the dictator of Cameroon to rely on his atavistic uses of violence have to recognize that violence in this case is only precipitating the country over cliff at a frightened speed.

All Cameroonians, particularly, the francophone majority, shall spare no effort in denouncing this abusive, illegal and unilateral deprivation of internet rights in our English provinces. Furthermore, we shall unite our forces to help preventing this crisis from being exploited by opportunist and cynical politicians into a definitive break up of our beloved country. Our Anglophone brothers and sisters have to be restore in their citizenship rights and that include our urgent request that the regime of Yaoundé restore Internet access to the whole country.

It is incumbent to us, moreover, to reflect on how to bring this “internet secession” to justice. In view of the recently adopted UN resolution, which considers the intentional deprivation by a government of any Internet access as a violation of human rights, the time has come for internet operators in Cameroon to bring charges against the Cameroonian government for abusive violation of human rights; a political crime that comes packaged with disastrous economic consequences.

The long term damages of this internet disruption cannot be ignored. Many internet operators and Cameroonian digital startups that constitute the Cameroonian “Silicon Valley” are being ruined by these internet disruption and the oppressive policies of the Cameroonian regime that not only harm human rights but economic development as well.

We can no longer remain passive and keep calling in vain for the restoration of access to the Internet in our north and south west region being punished for their civic insubordination by the authoritarian regime of the dictator Paul Biya. A regime that has always fail to see political opposition within a logic of contribution and therefore made themselves irrelevant. Hence, this internet crisis must be appreciated with the larger political crisis confronting the country and the pressure to democratize.

Le Comité de Libération des Prisonniers Politiques (CL2P)
http://www.cl2p.org