"Inside Cameroon's Kondengui prison: the epicenter of crackdown on dissent"

In the courtyard of Kondengui maximum security prison, visitors and inmates gather while French-dubbed Nollywood films play on a television screen. The green, red, and yellow flag of Cameroon waves overhead.

This lively scene in Yaoundé, the capital, contrasts starkly with the prison’s grim reputation as a center of repression under Paul Biya’s long rule. Over five decades, thousands have been detained and mistreated here as Biya, now 92, has tightened his hold on the country.

Many detainees were imprisoned under a 2014 anti-terrorism law that permitted military courts to prosecute civilians, reducing legal protections, according to Amnesty International in 2021.

Some spend years behind bars without trial. One man was recently freed after six years in detention without a trial, accused only of failing to present an ID when requested—a charge with a maximum sentence of one year.

Kondengui holds multiple supporters of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, the main opposition party. Its leader, Maurice Kamto, was imprisoned for nine months following protests against the 2018 election results. In an open letter during his detention, he wrote, "This government thinks Kondengui can solve everything. But not even death solves everything. Ideas cannot be imprisoned."

### A legacy of suppression

Cameroon’s rulers have long worked to silence dissent. Off the coast of Douala lies Manoka prison, now mostly sinking into the Wouri River and accessible only by boat. Originally used by German colonial authorities to detain independence activists, it was abandoned after World War I—but repression persisted under new colonial rulers.

Biya, who succeeded Cameroon’s first president in 1982, has been accused of upholding colonial-era tactics to control the population.

Among those affected is peace activist Abdul Karim Ali, sentenced to life in prison by a military court in April for "hostility against the homeland" and "secession."

In 2019, the government had included Ali in a Swiss-backed mediation effort to resolve unrest in Cameroon’s anglophone regions. Protests that began in 2016 over marginalization escalated into violent clashes between security forces and separatist fighters, resulting in over 6,000 deaths.

Ali was arrested in 2022 while taking his sick mother to the hospital, shortly after he had accused a soldier from an elite unit of involvement in alleged war crimes in Buea.