4 journalists detained in Cameroon reporting on Trump's deportations
Source: Washington Post
Four journalists, including three working for the Associated Press, were detained in Cameroon on Tuesday while reporting from a facility where migrants deported by the Trump administration are held, according to one of the detained journalists and two lawyers advocating for the deportees. Awah Joseph Fru, a lawyer representing deported migrants, was detained alongside the journalists.
About 15 migrants who are not from Cameroon have been sent to the country by the United States since January, according to Alma David, one of the attorneys advocating for the deportees. The deportations to Cameroon happened amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to pressure foreign nations into signing onto secretive third-country deportation agreements, which allow the federal government to remove migrants from the U.S. and send them to places other than their country of origin.
Fru and freelance journalist Randy Joe Sa’ah said that they and the three AP journalists were detained for about five hours before they were all released Tuesday evening, and that the journalists’ devices — including laptops, phones and cameras — were confiscated by law enforcement. Fru said he saw that one of the journalists displayed bruises upon their release.
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Quintal said she’s especially worried that authorities confiscated the journalists’ devices, a move that raises concerns about their ability to protect vulnerable sources and the risk of the devices being compromised with spyware. Fru said he is trying to pressure authorities to return the journalists’ devices. “This is their working gear, for God’s sake,” he said.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/02/19/cameroon-deportations-journalists-detained/
The war on journalists continues unabated.
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