Albert Womah Mukong vs. Cameroon

Views of the Human Rights Committee, Communication No. 458/1991, UN Doc. CCPR/C/51/D/458/1991 of 10 August 1994.

Summary

In August 1994, the UN Human Rights Committee issued a landmark decision finding that the Cameroonian Government had violated the right to freedom of expression and other rights of Albert Mukong, a writer, journalist and outspoken opponent of the one-party system in Cameroon. The case, filed by ARTICLE 19 in February 1991, was the first ever brought against Cameroon under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Facts

Albert Mukong was arrested and jailed in June 1988 for criticizing the President and Government in an interview he gave to a correspondent of the British Broadcasting Corporation. In January 1989 he was charged with subversion, and the charges were dismissed in May. He was arrested again in February 1990 and detained for six weeks. Before these last two periods of detention, Albert Mukong had been imprisoned on four separate occasions, including between 1970 and 1976 when Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience. His book about this experience, Prisoner Without a Crime, published in English in October 1984, was banned in Cameroon in November 1985.

Decision

The Committee concluded that the detention violated Albert Mukong's right to freedom of expression. The Committee declared that "the legitimate objective of safeguarding and indeed strengthening national unity under difficult political circumstances cannot be achieved by attempting to muzzle advocacy of multi-party democracy, democratic tenets and human rights".

The Committee also concluded that the conditions of Albert Mukong's detention amounted to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Albert Mukong claimed that during the ten and a half months of his detention he was at times held in a small cell with 25 to 30 other detainees without sanitary facilities, at times without food, sometimes in a cold cell without any clothes or bedding and at other times in a cell that reached 40 degrees Celsius. For some periods he was held incommunicado and several times he was threatened with being taken to the torture chamber or shot.

The Committee rejected the government's contention that Mukong had the burden of proving that he had been subjected to these conditions. The Committee noted that "frequently the State party alone has access to the relevant information" and that, given that Albert Mukong had "provided detailed information about the treatment he was subjected to, ... it was incumbent upon the [government] to refute the allegations in detail" (para. 9.2).

The Committee further observed that a state party to the Covenant, regardless of its level of development, must meet certain minimum standards regarding conditions of detention, including: minimum floor space and cubic content of air for each prisoner, adequate sanitary facilities, adequate bedding, adequate clothing and food of adequate nutritional value for health and strength (para. 9.3).

In conclusion, the Committee urged the government "to grant Mr Mukong appropriate compensation for the treatment he has been subjected to, to investigate his allegations of ill-treatment in detention, to respect his rights under article 19 of the Covenant, and to ensure that similar violations do not occur in the future."

As of 10 November 1995, the government had not yet taken any of these steps. But regardless of whether Mukong receives compensation he will have scored a victory. The decision of the Human Rights Committee has received publicity within Cameroon, and it declares important new principles that, over time, may be accepted by governments around the world.