Human Rights Watch has reported that Cameroonian authorities have held more than 100 detainees incommunicado and tortured several others in Cameroon’s political capital Yaounde from July 23 to August 4, 2019.

Going by a report published earlier today on its website, Human Rights Watch accuses Cameroonian authorities of having tortured and detained over 100 people incommunicado at its State Defence Secretariat, SED in Yaounde.

“The prison (SED) has been used to hold people incommunicado and as a place of torture since at least 2014. Torture is pervasive across the country, in both official and unofficial detention Centres”

According to Human Rights Watch officials, the detainees were transferred to the SED “the morning after inmates in Yaounde’s Central Prison rioted on July 22 in protest at overcrowding, dire living conditions, and delays in their cases getting to trial.

“Under human rights law, all forms of inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees is strictly prohibited, and Cameroonian law provides that detainees shall not be subject to any physical or mental constraints, or to torture, and that their counsel and families should be able to visit them at any time” Part of the report reads.