YAOUNDE (Reuters) - A Cameroonian social media activist and government critic has not been seen since his arrest three weeks ago and his lawyers believe he has been extrajudicially returned to Cameroon from Gabon, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.
The activist, Steve Akam, was last seen in a video circulated online that showed him handcuffed and surrounded by Cameroonian police near the border with Gabon.
Akam had been living in Gabon for the past decade. Human Rights Watch said the video was filmed about three weeks ago in the Cameroonian town of Kye-Ossi, near the border with Gabon.
Akam is better known by his social media profile Ramon Cotta on TikTok, which has over 30,000 followers. In his last video, Akam accuses President Paul Biya of pursuing a war in Cameroon's anglophone regions in order to remain in power.
"The Cameroonian government has for years cracked down on opposition and free speech, jailing political activists, journalists, and dissidents," Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “Ahead of elections in 2025, it has increasingly restricted freedoms of expression and association.”
A spokesperson for Cameroon’s police declined to comment by text message.
Lawyers for Akam could not immediately be reached. Human Rights Watch said that his lawyers believe Akam was extrajudicially returned from Gabon to Cameroon.
Cameroonian opposition leader Maurice Kamto has previously called on the government to provide proof that the activist is still alive.
In a case that roiled the Central African nation last year, prominent journalist Martinez Zogo's mutilated remains were found near the capital Yaounde after he was abducted. Zogo had reported on air about a case of alleged embezzlement involving a media outlet with government connections owned by business mogul Jean Pierre Amougou Belinga.
Seventeen people, including Belinga and the head of the counterintelligence service Maxime Leopold Eko Eko, are standing trial in connection with Zogo's torture and murder.
The media watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists has urged Cameroon authorities to be transparent over Zogo, and also account for the death of another journalist in government custody in 2019.
(Reporting by Amindeh Blaise Atabong and Jessica Donati, Writing by Jessica Donati, Editing by Giles Elgood)
