Just hours before the visit of Pope Leo XIV, Cameroonian civil society organizations break the silence and demand the immediate release of political prisoners. Between post-election repression and authoritarian drift, Yaoundé is called upon to respond.
The sovereign pontiff will set foot on Cameroonian soil in a few hours. The diplomatic veneer is cracking. Behind the official preparations, another reality imposes itself: that of a country where dissent can lead to prison, sometimes for years, often in the shadows.
Since the October 2025 presidential election, repression has intensified to an unprecedented level. Mass arrests, arbitrary detentions, systematic use of military courts to try civilians: Civil society organizations denounce a well-oiled mechanism aimed at stifling any dissenting voice. A simple electoral demand has turned into a deep crisis of the rule of law.
Read more Budget discipline and financial reforms: CEMAC raises the tone
This scenario is not new. Already after the 2018 election, several opposition figures, including Maurice Kamto, had been arrested. Even today, cadres of his movement languish in prison, such as Olivier Bibou Nissack or Alain Fogue Tedom, sentenced to heavy penalties. Alongside them, thousands of anonymous individuals, often young, arrested without warrants, sometimes solely because of their origin.
The numbers are staggering: more than 3,000 arrests recorded since 2018, thousands of detainees still without trial, dozens of deaths in detention. Alleged torture, extortion, deprivation of basic rights—the picture painted by NGOs is damning.
Even more worrying is the use of the anti-terrorism law to criminalize ordinary political behaviors. Wearing a t-shirt, chanting a slogan, participating in a gathering: all acts that can lead to a military court. A drift denounced as a blatant violation of international standards.
In this context, the visit of Pope Leo XIV takes on a highly symbolic dimension. As a figure of engaged Catholicism, the pontiff is called upon as a moral authority capable of weighing where local voices struggle to be heard. Civil society explicitly asks him to intercede with President Paul Biya to obtain the release of political prisoners.
Beyond Cameroon’s borders, it is the very credibility of democratic principles that is at stake. Because no lasting stability can arise from fear. In Yaoundé, the choice is now clear: release to appease, or persist at the risk of deeply fracturing the nation.
