A prominent LGBTQ activist in Cameroon is facing terrorism charges.
Alice Nkom, a human rights lawyer and board president of Réseau des Défenseurs des Droits Humains en Afrique Centrale, a group known by the acronym Redhac that translates to Human Rights Defenders Network in Central Africa, on Jan. 2 received a summons from Cameroon’s National Gendarmerie, or national military intelligence.
The summons follows a complaint that Lilian Engoulou, general coordinator of the Observatory for Societal Development, filed.
Engoulou has accused Nkom of attempting to endanger state security, financing terrorism, and funding separatist groups in the northwest and southwest regions of the country that are fighting for independence from Cameroon.
Nkom in recent months has been vocal over the human rights situation in the country, including LGBTQ rights.
Territorial Administration Minister Paul Atanga Nji last month suspended Redhac and sealed the organization’s offices for alleged illegal and exorbitant funding and lack of compliance with government regulations on how NGOs should be run.
Nkom, however, removed the seals. This action prompted authorities in Littoral province where Redhoc’s offices are located to issue the summons on Dec. 19 after she did not appear.
Nkom has described the summons as a political witch hunt, stating she doesn’t acknowledge the Observatory for Societal Development. Nkom added she broke the seals because authorities placed them illegally.
“At the beginning of the year, a new summons, this time issued by the police, at the request of the military court, with accusations of financing terrorism, following the complaint of an association that I ignore from its existence, its leaders, or even the date of its creation,” she said.
“Human rights defenders are small, fragile but courageous, against the authoritarian and totalitarian drift of a state,” added Nkom. “Like the dikes facing the rising tide of injustice, they stand there firm, despite their
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