{"id":30559,"date":"2016-11-24T01:29:04","date_gmt":"2016-11-24T01:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/bamenda-protests-mass-arrests-in-cameroon\/"},"modified":"2016-11-24T01:28:58","modified_gmt":"2016-11-24T01:28:58","slug":"bamenda-protests-mass-arrests-in-cameroon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/bamenda-protests-mass-arrests-in-cameroon\/","title":{"rendered":"Bamenda protests: Mass arrests in Cameroon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{At least 100 people have been arrested following days of protests against the use of French in courts and schools in English-speaking parts of Cameroon.}<\/p>\n<p>Several others are being treated with bullet wounds in hospital in the region&#8217;s main city, Bamenda.<\/p>\n<p>Lawyers are opposed to the employment of court workers who do not understand the application of British common law.<\/p>\n<p>Areas controlled by Britain and France joined to form Cameroon after the colonial powers withdrew in the 1960s.<\/p>\n<p>The country has 10 semi-autonomous administrative regions &#8211; eight are Francophone and use the French civil law.<\/p>\n<p>English-speakers have long complained that they face discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>They often complain that they are excluded from top civil service jobs and that government documents are often only published in French, even though English is also an official language.<\/p>\n<p>Bamenda is the founding place of Cameroon&#8217;s largest opposition political party, the Social Democratic Front.<\/p>\n<p>{{Find out more about Cameroon}}<\/p>\n<p>The BBC&#8217;s Frederic Takang in Bamenda says there is tension in the north-western city and businesses and schools have been closed.<\/p>\n<p>At least one person was shot dead on the first day of the protests, 10 others were admitted to hospital with four in critical condition, he says.<\/p>\n<p>Teachers and local residents joined the protests which started on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Educators in the English-speaking regions have been opposed to the employment of teachers who only speak French in technical schools.<\/p>\n<p>Cameroon was colonised by Germany and then split into British and French areas after World War One.<\/p>\n<p>Following a referendum, British-run Southern Cameroons joined the French-speaking Republic of Cameroon in 1961, while Northern Cameroons voted to join English-speaking Nigeria.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-16610 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_92618016_cameroon1.jpg\" alt=\"At least one person was shot dead on the first day of the protests\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{At least 100 people have been arrested following days of protests against the use of French in courts and schools in English-speaking parts of Cameroon.} Several others are being treated with bullet wounds in hospital in the region&#8217;s main city, Bamenda. Lawyers are opposed to the employment of court workers who do not understand the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-30559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30559"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=30559"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=30559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}