{"id":31703,"date":"2017-01-10T01:01:11","date_gmt":"2017-01-10T01:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/cameroon-teachers-and-lawyers-in-bamenda-strike\/"},"modified":"2017-01-10T01:01:08","modified_gmt":"2017-01-10T01:01:08","slug":"cameroon-teachers-and-lawyers-in-bamenda-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/cameroon-teachers-and-lawyers-in-bamenda-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameroon: Teachers and lawyers in Bamenda strike over language row"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Teachers and lawyers in the Cameroonian city of Bamenda have gone on strike in a dispute about language, bringing streets and classrooms to a standstill.}<\/p>\n<p>The main cause of discontent is the use of French in courts and schools in English-speaking parts of the country, which include Bamenda.<\/p>\n<p>Monday&#8217;s strike was called on the day schools were due to reopen for the second term of the year.<\/p>\n<p>A BBC correspondent says the strike turned Bamenda into a ghost town.<\/p>\n<p>Classrooms remained closed as teachers as well as students stayed away.<\/p>\n<p>This latest disruption to the school calendar threatens to void the academic year.<\/p>\n<p>The government has urged the disgruntled civil servants to end the strike.<\/p>\n<p>English speakers have long complained of discrimination in Cameroon.<\/p>\n<p>They say they are often excluded from top civil service jobs and that many government documents are published only in French, even though English is an official language.<\/p>\n<p>English-speaking lawyers also object to the employment of court workers who do not understand the application of British common law.<\/p>\n<p>Cameroon was colonised by Germany in the 19th Century and then split into British and French areas after World War One.<\/p>\n<p>Later, areas controlled by Britain and France joined to form Cameroon after the colonial powers withdrew in the 1960s.<\/p>\n<p>Bamenda is the founding place of Cameroon&#8217;s largest opposition political party, the Social Democratic Front.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-17526 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_93323806_bamendacameroonghosttown.jpg\" alt=\"Streets in Bamenda were unusually empty\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Teachers and lawyers in the Cameroonian city of Bamenda have gone on strike in a dispute about language, bringing streets and classrooms to a standstill.} The main cause of discontent is the use of French in courts and schools in English-speaking parts of the country, which include Bamenda. Monday&#8217;s strike was called on the day [&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-31703","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\/31703","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=31703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31703"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31703"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}