3. “Cambodia: World Heritage Committee must not ignore ‘mass forced evictions’ around Angkor Wat”, 10 September 4. “Cambodia: Shuttering ‘Voice of Democracy’ outlet is attempt to slam door on independent media”, 13 February 5. “Cambodia: Opposition leader Kem Sokha sentenced to 27 years on fabricated treason charge”, 3 March 6. “Cambodia: Election takes place under cloud of human rights crisis”, 21 July 7. “Cambodia: Casino union leader Chhim Sithar and strikers convicted”, 25 May CAMEROON Republic of Cameroon The right to freedom of expression was seriously under threat, and two journalists were murdered. Political opponents, and anglophone people in the North-West and South-West regions, continued to be arbitrarily arrested. In the North-West and South-West anglophone regions, the Cameroonian army and armed separatist groups carried out unlawful killings and murders. In the Far North region, armed groups descended from Boko-Haram continued to carry out killings and abductions. BACKGROUND Nine out of 10 regions were affected by three major humanitarian crises: the armed conflict in the Lake Chad basin involving Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Jama’tu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS) armed groups; the armed violence in the North-West and South-West anglophone regions; and the 335,000 refugees from the Central African Republic with limited access to jobs, food, education, water, sanitation and hygiene services. In the Far North region, more than 380,000 internally displaced people were affected by flooding and a cholera outbreak. More than 630,000 people were internally displaced due to armed violence in the anglophone regions. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION Journalists faced attacks in the course of carrying out their professional duties.1 118 Martinez Zogo, a journalist and head of privately-owned radio station Amplitude FM, was abducted by unidentified men on 17 January and his mutilated body found five days later in the suburbs of Yaoundé. He had been investigating and reporting on the alleged embezzlement of hundreds of billions of CFA francs by political and business figures close to the government. The head of the General Directorate for External Research (Cameroon’s counter-intelligence agency), and a prominent media mogul and business tycoon were arrested and charged with complicity in Martinez Zogo’s torture and remanded in custody. On 3 February, the body of Jean-Jacques Ola Bébé, a priest and radio presenter and former colleague of Martinez Zogo’s, was found near his home in Mimboman, a suburb of Yaoundé. Shortly before his death he had made public comments about Martinez Zogo’s murder. There was no official communication about the launch of an investigation into this murder. ARBITRARY DETENTION In March, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention stated that the detention of anglophone journalist Thomas Awah Junior was arbitrary, and asked the Cameroonian authorities to “release [him] immediately and grant him the right to obtain compensation.” He had been sentenced by a military court in May 2018 to 11 years in prison on charges of “terrorism, hostility to the fatherland, secession, revolution, insurrection, spreading false news, and contempt for civil authority”. Dozens of other anglophone people, including protest leaders Mancho Bibixy, Tsi Conrad and Penn Terence Khan, were still arbitrarily detained. They had been sentenced by a military court in Yaoundé to 15 years in prison, following their convictions in 2017 and 2018 for “acts of terrorism, secession, spreading false information, and contempt for public bodies and officials” in the context of the armed violence in the North-West and South-West anglophone regions. The State of the World’s Human Rights