Weaponizing cyber defamation: Digital authoritarianism and elite impunity in Cameroon

Abstract

This commentary critiques a weaponisation of cyber defamation laws in Cameroon as an instrument of digital authoritarianism and political oppression, highlighting how power relations and infrastructural dynamics shape these processes. Drawing from my own arrest and prosecution for allegedly attacking the ‘honour and reputation’ of a prominent Cameroonian political figure when a video leaked of me decrying my experience being defrauded by his wife, I evaluate the digital reincarnation of colonial-era libel and sedition laws under the mantel of cybersecurity. Cameroon possesses one of the most detailed and punitive legal frameworks for policing online expression on the African continent and, indeed, in the world. Yet such laws have largely been deployed for criminalising speech online: ostensibly designed to protect digital spaces, they are mobilised to surveil, intimidate, and prosecute citizens in a tightly networked political-legal sphere dominated by an elite minority. Within broader regional practices, cyber defamation can function as a tool of digital authoritarian recomposition, camouflaging repression in legal and technological legitimacy.

From colonial libel to cybercrime

Cameroon's defamation laws have their roots in French colonial decrees that represented and governed libel as a form of sedition against authority in a tradition of civil law that prioritised the protection of honour over the freedom of expression (e.g., Code Pénal de 1810 and Loi du 29 juillet 1881 sur la liberté de la presse). Under the colonial penal code (imposed in French Cameroon from 1919 to 1960), acts of speech that were perceived as harming the prestige or honour of a colonial administrator were deemed saboteur activities. As in other colonial settings, such acts were considered threats to the sovereign and were effectively tantamount to treason (Kurtul, 2020). In colonial Cameroon, the burden of proof fell to the defendant (see Décret n° 51-622, the colonial penal code issued 15 June 1951 pertaining to defamation) and truth was not always a reliable defense, particularly in cases involving public figures which favoured swift verdicts. Defamation law was directly instrumentalised by French colonial administrators and their proxies to repress Cameroonian journalists (Nyamnjoh, 2005; Takougang, 1995) as well as anticolonial organising, including through the targeting and detention of Cameroonian independence leaders such as Ruben Um Nyobè on 5 March 1955 and Félix-Roland Moumié in June 1955 for libelous denunciation, insulting colonial authorities, and other alleged public-order offenses (Joseph, 1977; Koufan Menkene, 2013). Public humiliation was an immaterial objective of such colonial-era repression campaigns (Shutt, 2018); while more tangible aims included illegal searches and seizures in the homes and offices of political leaders (Joseph, 1977: 249; Nkwi, 2019).

In the post-colonial period, the state has amplified colonial-era decrees with the emergent vocabulary of cybercrime. Section 305 of Cameroon's Penal Code maintains sanctions against individuals convicted of defamation, including imprisonment for 6 days to 6 months, and fines of up to 2 million CFA francs (Law No. 67-LF-1 of 12 June 1967). The ordinance of 21 December 2010 on Cybersecurity and Cybercrime (Law No. 2010/012) is a centerpiece of this legal arsenal, making Cameroon one of the most sophisticated, detailed, and punitive jurisdictions for policing online expression in Africa, and likely in the world. During a 93-day government-ordered internet shutdown in 2017 (amid escalating political tensions and state violence in the Anglophone regions), officials from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications sent standardized SMS messages that appeared directly in subscribers’ message inboxes nationwide. These texts warned that digital speech acts that people ‘can’t prove’ would be treated as cyberdefamation and punished by ‘6 months to 2 years imprisonment, and 5 to 10 million CFA francs in fines’ (BBC, 2017; see also Murrey, 2022). International legal standards underscore the egregiousness of such punishments for acts of speech. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has argued that ‘imprisonment is never an appropriate penalty’ for defamation. The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights affirms that journalists should not face custodial sentences for speech offenses. However, Cameroonian officials have selectively enforced the law to shield the country's ruling elite from criticism and further mobilised the spectre of criminal prosecution for online speech activities to foster fear and self-censorship. The implementation of cyberdefamation law has permitted an individualisation of the judiciary for powerful individuals, who can manipulate bureaucratic processes through personal/family/mafia-like networks, bribes or threats; as such, it can operate as a form of lawfare, in which the juridical system is instrumentalised to complement state and class violence.

Weaponizing online defamation to silence criticism

This weaponization of the law is apparent through the large volume of contemporary cases targeting journalists, activists, and members of minoritised groups who have said or posted something online that has displeased powerful individuals, whether purposefully or inadvertently through leaks. An activist and influencer living and working in France, the Cameroonian journalist Paul Chouta spent two years in pre-trial detention in Yaoundé's Kodengui prison on speech-related charges after posting content critical of a public figure (Reporters Without Borders, 2021). Kodengui is a maximum-security facility plagued by chronic overcrowding (an inmate population routinely exceeds capacity by more than 200 percent ¹ ; Human Rights Watch, 2017) and deteriorating conditions, having not been renovated or adequately updated for over two decades. Chouta was arrested in May 2019 after a well-connected Cameroonian novelist and pundit accused him of defamation and disseminating false news. His litigation was marred with repeated delays and adjournments. It is common for prosecutors to routinely seek to exhaust defendants financially and psychologically. These tactics echo Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participations (SLAPP), although in Cameroon the suits invoke criminal rather than civil law. Cyber defamation provisions are mobilised for personal revenge and intimidation, as members of the elite benefit from a context of widespread arbitrary detention, sustained legal impunity for well-connected individuals, and the absenteeism of President Paul Biya. As this article goes to press, Biya is in his 43rd year as president and is the world's oldest elected leader. His entourage has embraced digital repression as another means of preserving power; in July 2025, his PR and communications staff announced his intention to run for an 8^th term of presidency on X/Twitter (Murrey, 2025).

My family recently had an experience that exemplifies how highly connected individuals mobilise these laws as part of their personal arsenal. In March 2025, my husband and I were charged with cyber defamation after a private video (in which we documented the theft of 5 months’ rent and materials to renovate the property by a high-ranking landlord) was leaked online without our consent. The landlord was the wife of André-Magnus Ekoumou, a ruling party official who was at the time Cameroon's Ambassador to France. Although we were the victims of a property fraud and never published the video or made any public accusation, the discomfiture caused to a well-connected family resulted in criminal charges against us primarily because my husband belongs to a politically oppressed group in Cameron, the Bamiléké people. The journalist who uploaded and circulated the video online publicly attested that he had done so without our permission via Facebook in January 2025 and March 2025. The police investigators concluded there was no evidence of wrongdoing on our part in their final report, although they repeatedly complained (in the presence of our attorney) to be ‘under pressure from the hierarchy’. Ambassador Ekoumou recorded and sent intimidating WhatsApp voice memos to the investigating officers. In the messages I was later allowed to listen to, he ordered police to ‘make an example of us’ and asserted, ‘do you know who I am? I was appointed by the President’. The Public Prosecutor, Ntyam Nkoto Florent-Yves, who is also the Ambassador's nephew and whose wife (Adele Blanche Yango Bangue) is the Ambassador's private attorney, illegally ordered our arrest under a flagrant délit procedure, which is reserved for caught-in-the-act offenses immediately following the alleged crime (our arrest warrants were issued 3.5 months after the incident). On 13 March 2025, my partner and I were arrested, denied proper information about the charges, and eventually convicted in a trial riddled with legal irregularities.

Despite Cameroonian law stipulating that remand in custody is an exceptional measure and requiring the release of accused persons with known residence and guarantees of appearance (Law No. 2016/007 of 12 July 2016, Art. 218(1)), my partner was detained in pre-trial detention for 65 days at Kodengui Central Prison. Although the Ambassador withdrew his complaint on 8 May 2025, the prosecutor (his nephew) refused to drop the charges, contravening Article 305.4 of Cameroonian law. After a multiweek investigation, on 15 May 2025, the U.S. State Department Country Officer working on our case informed us that they were prepared to designate our detention as arbitrary according to the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act. My partner was released on 16 May 2025.

As these examples show, cyber defamation statutes in Cameroon function as instruments of extrajuridical coercion, serving as a pretext for politically motivated prosecutions, bypassing due process when the powerful demand a punitive outcome. In our case, issuing a warrant to my university sponsor, sending informal envoys to repeatedly menace and pressure me to issue a public video of apology, and failing to transfer my partner from Kodengui to the Court of the First Instance for court hearings. The legal and technological legitimacy of these laws provides cover for extrajudicial punishment, enabling elites to stigmatise and ostracise those who critique them.

The systematic use of cyber defamation provisions in Cameroon exemplifies a broader trend of digital authoritarianism, what has been termed ‘resurgent authoritariansm in cyberspace’ (Deibert, 2015). This model of governance leverages digital tools like surveillance, wiretapping, espionage, censorship, malware attacks, misinformation campaigns, and punitive laws to extend authoritarian control into online spaces. In Cameroon, this has including the recruitment of tech experts to hack the social media accounts of dissidents (for example, the reported ruling party's hacking of political influencer Paul Chouta's Facebook account in early August 2025) and alleged payouts to users to comment, post, and vlog anti-opposition and pro-state propaganda online, so called ‘cyber-troops’ (Munoriyarwa and Mare, 2022). In their 2021 study of ten African states, including Cameroon, researchers at African Digital Rights Network (ADRN) documented a ‘plethora of measures’ used by governments to stifle online civic space: unwarranted arrests for social media posts, new laws that criminalize online dissent, and intimidation leading to widespread self-censorship (Roberts et al., 2021). In Cameroon, these processes are intensified by the state's symbiotic relationship with French-inspired legal codes, foreign-owned telecommunications firms, and corporate digital platforms that comply with the state's takedown requests.

Conclusion

Cyber defamation functions as a tool of digital authoritarian re-composition within a long history of arbitrary detention, camouflaging repression in legal and technological legitimacy. Cameroon's sophisticated cyber laws and their abusive, often extrajudicial, enforcement demonstrate the ways in which the rhetoric of cybersecurity and reputation protection can be co-opted to serve authoritarian ends: by camouflaging repression in the legal procedures of court summons, indictments, trials, and more, economic and political elites continue the colonial practice of legitimising the punishment of speech and discourage dissent. What initially appears as a modern regulatory framework for the digital age has been, in practice, a mechanism to expand an apparatus of censorship and fear.

Increasingly, authoritarian states extend their coercive power beyond national borders, targeting exiled dissidents through digital means (Kperogi, 2023), because they recognize that regime survival is dependent upon the weaponization of technologies, including the capacity to threaten and coerce transnational communities and Cameroonians abroad. In the case of our arrest and prosecution, Cameroonian journalists and particularly a handful of political influencers living in France and Belgium leveraged online platforms to expose our mistreatment as part of a larger pattern of authoritarian abuse. The ongoing struggles between cyber repression and digital resistance illuminates a dialectic in which digital and corporate technologies simultaneously enable the consolidation of authoritarian (and fascist) power while fostering spaces of resistance, liberation, and epistemic justice (Murrey, 2024; Pouo Moutsouka, 2025). The elite capture of cybersecurity legislation, in the context of extrajuridical power, political impunity, and normalised authoritarianism, renders Cameroonian digital activists, scholars, journalists, and vloggers acutely vulnerable to violence—underscoring the urgent need for judicial accountability, the dismantling of authoritarian patronage networks, and far more scrutiny and awareness of how the façade of legality is weaponised to disguise repression.