On July 15, advocates and activists from all over Cameroon gathered together for the sixth annual Human Rights Defenders Day. The event is organised annually as a protest against violence and persistent abuses of human rights in Cameroon, and a commemoration of the assassination of Eric Ohena Lembembe, the executive director of the LGBT advocacy group, Camfaids on July 15, 2013, in his home in Yaoundé. According to the African Human Rights Media Network, the theme for the 2020 edition was “The Human Rights Defender facing The New Challenge: COVID-19” sponsored by the legal advocacy organization Défenseurs Sans Frontières (Defenders Without Borders).
During the conference, Jean Paul Enama, executive director of the LGBT rights and health advocacy group Humanity First Cameroon, proposed that a law is needed to shield human rights defenders from harm “in order to protect the work that these defenders do on the ground, African Human Rights Media Network reports.
“We need such a law in Cameroon so that the human rights defender will no longer worry [for personal safety]. He is campaigning for a noble cause. He works to improve society. He is not the enemy of the nation,” Enama said.
Nickel Liwandi Kamen, executive director of Camfaids, declared that “We want the state to set up a mechanism we can turn to in cases of [violations of rights, attacks, intimidation etc.] A law will guarantee defenders a certain freedom, a certain legality which will already be a good start. But if nothing is done operationally, a law alone will not be enough.”
“We should not wait for a law on defenders. What is important for us is to continue to educate ourselves. When you are trained, you know you can avoid traps, arrests, etc. We must act in accordance with the legal framework,” Eva Etongue Mayer, secretary-general of the National Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms, said.
