Cameroon journos 'tortured'
2010-03-02 22:25
Yaounde - Intelligence agents in Cameroon tortured two independent news journalists when they were detained in February, the country's press union alleged in a statement obtained by AFP on Tuesday.
Held for a week by the country's Directorate-General of External Intelligence (DGRE), journalists Simon Nko'o and Serge Sabouang, "were submitted to a number of barbarous acts of torture", Cameroon's National Journalists Union (SNJC) said in the statement.
During their February 5-12 detention, the two were tied up and beaten nightly with metal bars, deprived of sleep and food and held naked in icy cells, according to the union, which denounced the alleged acts as "savagery of another era".
Sabouang, head of La Nation newspaper, was re-arrested on Monday on forgery charges, along with other journalists, police said.
For his part Nko'o, a reporter for the private biweekly Bebela, bore psychological scars of the alleged torture after his release on February 12, SNJC said.
The pair allegedly had documents compromising political figures.
Media rights groups Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee for the Protection of Journalists had protested their detention.
- SAPA