The Cameroon State security officers, comprising the gendarmerie, police and army, are committing

serious violations of human rights in breach of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
the Convention Against Torture, the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms, and the
African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), as well as other international and regional
human rights instruments such as Robben Island Guidelines, the Luanda Guidelines on conditions of
arrest, police custody and pre-trial detention and the Mandela Rules (Standard Minimum Rules) for the
treatment of prisoners.

In July 2018, 18 Anglophone civilians have been arbitrarily arrested, detained, and have shown signs
suggesting they have been subjected to torture in cells in the Kondengui Central Prison in Yaoundé.

Although authorities have issued assurances that torture is not being practiced, and although the
Constitution prohibits torture,[1] we have strong reasons and evidence attesting the fact that these 18
presumed-innocent individuals, are on a daily or weekly basis subjected to torture, cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment, and other forms of human rights violations, such as denial of their right to fair and
speedy trials and presumption of innocence.