SECTOR 1 Outside the judge’s chamber, there is no legal avenue that can oblige journalists to reveal their sources. Yet, “People try to use other means and threats to get information on sources.” For example, in 2014, gendarmes pressured the publisher of l’Emergence, one of the country’s few dailies, to reveal a source after the paper ran a story alleging that the passport of the Speaker of the National Assembly had been withdrawn by the judicial police. Less interested in whether the information was true or not, they persisted with their intimidation tactic asking “how dare you say that about the President of the National Assembly”; suggesting he was a demigod whose integrity mere mortals like journalists cannot afford to question. Scores: Individual scores: 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: 3.9 (2008=2.1; 2011=1.4) 1.7 Public information is easily accessible, guaranteed by law, to all citizens. In the absence of an Access to Information Law, public officials have no obligation to release information to citizens. They hide behind state secrecy and confidentiality rules to deny the public information. In addition, civil service practices require public officials to obtain authorisation from their superiors before giving out information to journalists and citizens. The process is usually long and its outcome unpredictable. Generally, access to information is difficult for journalists and worse for citizens. Many government services have press offices, but their personnel are not allowed to share information without prior authorisation. Even “the little information that is available is discriminatorily distributed,” and often at the discretion of the holder of the information. Civil servants may “leak” information to the press, but such instances are rare, panellists pointed out. The government’s principal information outlet for the public is the national gazette. But information in the gazette is limited to laws, decrees and other juridical and regulatory texts. While the problem of public access to information in Cameroon is largely due to a strong desire by government to control information, a lot of it AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER CAMEROON 2014 87