With readers’ help, we freed four gay Cameroonian prisoners
By Courtney Stans
With support from compassionate donors, four gay prisoners have been set free in Yaoundé, Cameroon, after this site’s Project Not Alone paid their fines. Each of them had been convicted and sentenced to six months in prison for nothing other than whom they love.
The four men — identified for their safety by the pseudonyms Amir, Elmer, Marty and Dick — are the first to be freed among the eight LGBT prisoners who are the focus of the 2022 phase of Project Not Alone.
(After this year’s project began, the original total of seven eligible prisoners was expanded to eight when it was learned that an eighth prisoner, a trans woman whom we call “Yvonne”, in fact had also been detained on charges related to gender identity.)
Each beneficiary of Project Not Alone was incarcerated for nothing other than a homophobic “crime”, in most cases violations of the nation’s cruel anti-homosexuality law, Article 347-1 of the penal code.
Amir, Elmer, Marty and Dick had been convicted of violating Article 347-1 after police raided a party on Jan. 4.
Amir, age 25, is slim, with a medium brown complexion and a piercing look. He had been in a relationship for a year with Elmer, age 30, who has a sturdy build and a dark complexion. They worked together as cooks at a restaurant and lived together in an apartment in the Biyem Assi neighborhood of Yaoundé. They rented the apartment from a landlord who regularly checked up on them.
On Jan. 4, they received a visit from their friends, Marty and Dick.
Marty, age 30, is tall with dark black eyes. Dick, age 28, is slender — like a model. The four of them were having a good time when the landlord reported them to police. The police quickly raided the party. A rough altercation broke out. During the struggle, Both Amir’s feet were injured.
The officers arrested the men after noticing that some of them displayed feminine mannerisms.
All four were convicted of homosexuality despite the help of a public defender. Each was sentenced to six months in prison and a one-year suspended sentence.
In addition, each was fined 200,000 CFA francs (about U.S. $419). If they paid those fines, they could go free on July 10. Otherwise, they would have to work off the fines and remain in prison until about Nov. 10.
Their life in prison was miserable and dangerous because they were surrounded both by homophobic guards and by homophobic prisoners.
The prison is filthy, which affected their health. The cuts on Amir’s feet became infected. Marty developed ringworm and scabies. Both men went to the prison infirmary and received prescriptions for medications to treat those ailments, but they couldn’t pay for them. The price for Amir was estimated at 78,100 CFA francs (about $164). For Marty, 72,200 CFA francs (about $151).
After a reporter for Erasing 76 Crimes visited them in prison and investigated their legal status, a plea for help was published on June 28. (“Help us free 7 imprisoned LGBT victims of homophobia”)
The fundraising goal was $4,500. That total included:
- $2,168 to pay the fines of Amir, Elmer, Marty, Dick and one other convicted LGBT prisoner, Octavia;
- $497 for medication for Amir, Marty and Octavia;
- $577 for a delivery of food and hygiene items to the seven LGBT detainees, who were being fed only one meal per day by the prison; and
- $1,258 for the estimated expenses of pro-bono legal representation for two LGBT detainees, Cam and Don, who are still awaiting trial. An additional fundraising appeal might be needed in the weeks ahead, because Yvonne is also awaiting trial.
Generous readers soon donated the full $4,500, but not quite in time for a funds transfer to reach Cameroon before July 10.
Using the first donated funds, Project Not Alone purchased the medication for Amir, Marty and Octavia.
Next, after the transfers arrived, the prisoners received a delivery of food and hygiene items:
- Rice,
- Cooking oil,
- Pasta,
- Bathing soap and antiseptic soap,
- Bleach,
- Peanuts,
- Eggs,
- Onion-garlic cubes and
- Bananas (many bananas, because they were in season and cheap).
The four men’s fines were paid and they were set free on July 28.
Amir and Elmer met with an Erasing 76 Crimes reporter on Aug. 8 to express their thanks for the help that donors to Project Not Alone provided.
“We thank all the people who supported us in this difficult and traumatic ordeal. We hope to move on and especially to live in peace without any confrontation with anyone,” they said.
In the short term, they moved in with a friend. Their hope is to save enough money to rent their own apartment and to open a small store. They estimate that they need 660,000 CFA francs (about $1,000) to convert that dream into reality.
“Our new home would be someplace far from Yaoundé where we can live in security and in total discretion,” they said.
Their two friends have a different future in mind. On Aug. 5, Marty and Dick left the country, traveling the perilous and clandestine route north toward Morocco. From there, they hope to reach safety and acceptance in Europe. Many others have taken that route before them. For example, “Two desperate Cameroon refugees’ dangerous trek toward Europe”.
“We were also seduced by this idea,” Amir and Elmer said, “but our health does not allow us to embark on such a challenge even though we know that our country will always condemn homosexuals.”
The release of the four men is only the latest achievement of Project Not Alone.
In 2018, in the first phase of Project Not Alone, three LGBT prisoners in Yaoundé received food deliveries to supplement the one meal a day that Cameroonian inmates receive. In 2019, the project paid fines that freed three gay prisoners in Muslim-majority northern Cameroon. In 2020, two lesbians and a trans woman gained early release from a prison in eastern Cameroon after Project Not Alone paid their fines. Starting last year, Project Not Alone 2021 set free 11 LGBT prisoners, once again in Yaoundé. In each of these cases, donors’ contributions only benefited prisoners who were incarcerated for whom they love, not for other, unrelated crimes.
Project Not Alone is a joint effort of Erasing 76 Crimes; 76 Crimes en français; those sites’ financial sponsor, the St. Paul’s Foundation for International Reconciliation; and the Cameroonian legal aid association Défenseurs Sans Frontières.
