SECTOR 1 similar crimes were only acquitted after more than 30 court appearances and a three-year trial. The existence of the anti-terrorism law appears to be restricting the ability of journalists to properly report on the country’s numerous crises. Citing a local editor, the Committee to Protect Journalists observed in a 2017 report that ’the government conflates news coverage of militants or demonstrators with praise, and journalists don’t know what they can or cannot report safely, so they err on the side of caution.’3 According to one panellist, local radio stations are forced to practice self-censorship and report news that is ’appealing to people who want to hear what they want to hear.’ Journalists emphasise that they need extraordinary courage to report certain stories. This new dispensation has been created both by lingering government reluctance to encourage a free and open society and a marked decline in social cohesion in the past six years. Panellists observed that both the fight against Boko Haram and the government crackdown on Anglophone activists have created a heightened atmosphere of fear and limited free expression for both citizens and journalists. According to a panellist, the massive arrest of pro-independence and pro-federalism Anglophone activists over the last two years, including protesting students and community organisers, has instilled a general sense of apprehension. ‘People can only talk in hiding,’ the panellist said. ‘With plainclothes security operatives in taxis, you don’t know who is sitting by you.’ Comparatively, the right to freedom of expression has declined more in the past two years than in previous years. Between 2016 and 2018, authorities shut down the internet in the restive north-west and south-west regions at least twice; in part to limit the use of social media to mobilise protesters and to prevent the sharing of videos and images of alleged human rights abuses by troops. In early 2017, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications sent out dozens of threatening text messages to cellphone users, warning of the legal consequences of sharing unverified information. In addition, in mid-2018, military authorities banned soldiers from using social media after footage of soldiers allegedly torturing citizens and torching villages went viral on social media platforms. Outside the Anglophone crisis and the fight against Boko Haram, certain subjects remain taboo and show that limits are placed on freedom of expression and the press beyond the state apparatus. An outstanding example over the past few years is the business practices of the Bollore Group, a French firm which runs several businesses in the country. In 2016, newsrooms, including the country’s most influential newspapers and TV channels, were uncritical of the derailment of a train operated by Camrail, a company controlled by the Bollore Group; even though a government enquiry concluded that company actions were to blame. Against all expectation, some journalists in Cameroon took up the defence of the Bollore Group during a defamation case with journalists of TV5. Furthermore, while PHP, an agro-industrial firm run by the Bollore group, has been criticised 3 12 CPJ, 2017. Journalists Not Terrorists. In Cameroon, anti-terror legislation is used to silence critics and suppress dissent. CPJ, New York. AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER CAMEROON 2018