Cameroon on Wednesday provisionally released an activist imprisoned after he posted videos on TikTok urging democratic change ahead of next year’s presidential elections, his lawyer said.
Hairdresser and social media activist Junior Ngombe, 23, was arrested outside his shop in the western city of Douala on Wednesday last week by three plainclothes men claiming to be intelligence officers, Human Rights Watch said.
“Ngombe was granted bail under a guarantor’s undertaking at the Yaounde military court, where he was on trial,” his lawyer Serge Emmanuel Chendjou said. “It is a provisional release granted by the government commissioner at the military court.”
Photo: AFP
Ngombe’s arrest prompted an outcry over what international human rights groups call a growing crackdown on freedom of expression under 91-year-old Cameroonian President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 42 years.
Ngombe’s lawyers said he had been charged with “incitement to rebellion” and “propagation of false information,” which they believe to be linked to videos he posted on social media.
In his posts on TikTok, Ngombe encouraged people to vote in the presidential election and challenged the Cameroonian authorities’ crackdown on dissent.
“In 2025, either we win, or we lose everything,” he said, urging authorities to “let the youth express themselves” in the Central African country.
Since his arrest, civil society and opposition figures had clamored for his release, using the hashtag #FreeJuniorNgombe on social media.
Biya and his government are regularly accused by international human rights organizations of repressing all opposition. The long-serving president was re-elected in 2018 to his seventh term after a contested vote that sparked a wave of political repression.
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