Amnesty says 59 opposition members tortured in Cameroon

Kamto, the head of the opposition Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC), and about 100 party supporters were arrested in January and remain in detention.

The MRC has been organising demonstrations since the October 2018 presidential election which it says was rigged in favour of President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 36 years.

Amnesty said the torture and beatings took place at the State Secretariat for Defence (SED).

"Like many other unofficial detention centres across Cameroon, the SED has a reputation for torturing detainees. These repressive and brutal tactics to silence dissent must end," said Marie-Evelyne Petrus Barry, Amnesty International West and Central Africa director.

"Before releasing them, security forces beat them with sticks and forced them into humiliating positions," Amnesty said, calling for Kamto's "immediate" release.

"We were taken to the SED where gendarmes were waiting for us. Each of them was armed with a wooden stick, a cable and a baton with which we were beaten in the ears and our bodies. They then forced us to walk like a duck in the mud," a detainee told Amnesty.

In July, a military court ruled it had the jurisdiction to judge Kamto and 107 others and confirmed charges of rebellion, hostility against the homeland, incitement to insurrection, offence against the president of the republic and destruction of public buildings and goods.

The MRC also said party number two Mamadou Mota was tortured after being transferred to the SED following a riot in Yaounde's main jail where he was being held.

He had a fractured arm and did not receive treatment and was only given one meal after four days in solitary confinement, Olivier Bibou Nissack, Kamto's spokesman, said.

The statement comes after a riot at an overcrowded central prison in the capital Yaounde this week, where hundreds of prisoners revolted against their poor conditions in an upsurge of violence broadcast on Facebook.

Since 2017, fighting between government troops and English-speaking separatists demanding independence in two western regions has killed hundreds, forced nearly 500,000 people from their homes and filled jails with English-speaking activists accused of militancy by the authorities.