Let your wallet SAY NO to 9-year jail term for consensual sex

Despite death threats, attorney Walter Atoh is back in Cameroon to seek the release of a man imprisoned for homosexuality.

While Atoh provides the courage to defend his client, he depends on you to  provide financial support for his client’s defense fund.

Cornelius Fonya, 35, of Limbe, Cameroon, is serving a nine-year prison sentence after his conviction in a trial marred by improprieties. Atoh, his attorney, is one of the few lawyers in Cameroon willing to represent LGBTI defendants.

If you care about fair treatment for victimized LGBTI people worldwide, please contribute to the costs of his legal representation.

Providing Fonya with adequate legal representation has been difficult, both because Atoh continues to receive death threats and because he has to cover legal expenses on his own, since Fonya was disowned by his family after his conviction.

The ongoing death threats target both Atoh and his family. In the summer, he fled to London for safety, but now has returned to Cameroon.

He is appealing Fonya’s conviction on the basis of procedural irregularities that marred the trial. Those irregularities included the admission of medical/legal documents that were presented by prosecution witnesses but had never introduced during police investigations.

Fonya’s sexual encounter with the young man was apparently consensual, but the man’s family denies it. Fonya was convicted of same-sex sexual relations, not of rape.

To raise funds for Fonya’s legal expenses, Atoh launched an Indiegogo campaign that will run for nine more days. So far, it has raised $625 out of $8,000 needed for expenses such as:

• 

  Costs of preparing and filing necessary legal documents in the case.

• Cost of court requirements, such as the paperwork required to allow Fonya to appear in court each time his case is discussed. Atoh notes that a series of adjournments frequently occur in Cameroonian courts because only an incomplete panel of judges shows up when hearings are scheduled. (“Then
  you as counsel and your team are forced to drive back, then return on the new date for a hearing — and on that said date the same will happen,” Atoh said.)
• Two-way transportation by car from Atoh’s home in Kumba to the court of appeal in Buea.
• Food and lodging at a moderate-priced hotel in Buea before each court session so Atoh won’t risk arriving in court late after a drive from Kumba.
• Helping Fonya purchase medications and food, when necessary, because his family members have abandoned him, having judged that his actions were abominable.

Atoh has been successful in his defense of LGBTI Cameroonians in several previous cases.  C.O., a gay man, was released on bail last year and then fled to Italy, where he is seeking asylum. A lesbian, E.E., similarly fled from Cameroon while she was out on bail awaiting action on homosexuality charges. She is currently in the United States, seeking asylum.  A few years ago, Atoh arranged for the chief prosecutor to dismiss charges against three gay men, by arguing successfully that the investigation of their case had been conducted improperly.

Fonya was convicted in late 2013 of same-sex relations with a man variously reported to be 14, 16, 19 or more than 20 years old. Atoh says the man appears to be more than 20 years old, but he submitted a fraudulent birth certificate that put his age as 16. In its verdict, the court relied on that evidence as accurate, Atoh said.

In Cameroon, the maximum sentence for same-sex relations between adults is five years, but that maximum is doubled for same-sex relations involving someone between the ages of 16 and 21.

Death threats seeking to end Atoh’s defense of Fonya have included anonymous phone calls from people with disguised voices threatened to kill him and his family.

“We will eliminate you and your entire family since you have decided to remain stoic and adamant [in] defending or supporting abominable acts,” said one caller.

In March 2015, faced with continuing death threats, Atoh and his wife left their home and started sleeping in a hotel room.  She left Cameroon for London in March. Atoh joined her in August. Despite the risk, Atoh has now returned to Cameroon to pursue the case.

Fonya’s imprisonment should be treated as a human rights case, Atoh said. He is currently held at Buea Central Prison, where prisoners in overcrowded cells receive only one meal a day of poorly prepared, starchy food.  They receive 4.4 ounces of soap every six months.

The prison is a breeding ground for scabies, eczema, head lice, thrush, skin rashes and ring worm. Fonya “suffers from almost all of these and needs medications,” Atoh said.

“Cornelius hasn’t got money to pay lawyers for his case and his case is very complicated,” Atoh said. “Consequently he needs support from humanitarian-minded persons. I can’t do that alone as an individual.”

Atoh has received no funding from any organizations, he said. That means he is dependent on the success of the fundraising campaign on Indiegogo.

The next step in court for Fonya will be a ruling on his request that he be released on bail pending a decision on his appeal.

With one exception, Fonya has been behind bars since Oct. 29, 2012, when a mob seized him, hauled him to the police station, and accused him of same-sex activity.

Before his trial, Fonya posted money for bail and was released.  But he was re-arrested after the youth’s mother complained to the judge that her son had gone “mad” because of the sexual encounter.

For more information, see the article “Cameroon: Gay prisoner’s attorney defies death threats.”

Related articles:

• Cameroon: Gay prisoner’s attorney defies death threats (Oct. 9, 2015, 76crimes.com)
• Cameroon: 9 years in prison for gay sex; no witnesses (Nov. 21, 2013, 76crimes.com)
• Seized by anti-gay mob; 11 weeks in Cameroon jail; no trial (Jan. 15, 2013, 76crimes.com)
• Cameroon police arrest man seized by anti-gay mob (Nov. 20, 2012, 76crimes.com
• Cameroon tally of repression on Human Rights Day (76crimes.com)
• Vigilante brigade hunts Cameroon gays, says anti-gay activist (76crimes.com)
• Cameroon mob murders gay man; police jail his lover (76crimes.com)