CAMEROON authorities have detained a social media activist who posted videos on TikTok advocating for democratic change ahead of the 2025 presidential elections, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported, calling for his immediate release.
Junior Ngombe, a 23-year-old hairdresser and social media activist, was apprehended by three plainclothes men claiming to be intelligence officers outside his shop in Douala on July 24. Ngombe was subsequently transported to a detention facility in Yaounde, according to HRW.
Ngombe has been charged with ‘incitement to rebellion’ and ‘propagation of false information,’ which his lawyers attribute to the videos he shared on social media platforms. In these posts, Ngombe encouraged young Cameroonians to vote in the upcoming presidential election and criticised the government’s suppression of dissent.
‘We are millions of young Cameroonians who are suffering under the more than 40-year reign of the RDPC,’ Ngombe stated in a mid-April TikTok video, referring to President Paul Biya’s ruling party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement.
Since his arrest, civil society and opposition figures have rallied for Ngombe’s release, using the hashtag #FreeJuniorNgombe on social media. Human Rights Watch has urged Cameroon’s authorities to ‘listen to peaceful demands for reform instead of stifling freedom of expression,’ and called for the immediate release of Ngombe and the dropping of charges against him.
International human rights organisations frequently accuse President Biya’s government of repressing opposition voices. Biya, who has been in power for 42 years, was re-elected to his seventh term in 2018 following a contentious vote that led to increased political repression.
The day before Ngombe’s arrest, HRW had warned that Cameroon was enacting measures aimed at curbing freedom of expression. The government has denounced the ‘rise in insulting remarks against the institutions and those who embody them’ in the lead-up to the elections.
