Abstract

The aim of this research work was to carry out an evaluation on documenting human rights violations in the age of internet in Africa. This work was designed to establish and digest as well as discover the extent to which human rights violations has been properly documented in Africa with the instrumentality of the internet In accomplishing the set objective.

The researcher employed the survey research design to generate data from respondents. A total number of one hundred and thirty four (134) copies of questionnaire were distributed and they were all retrieved.The returned copies were therefore analyzed using simple percentages, table and the Chi-square formula.

The findings showed that the stakeholders in the media industries have come to understand the usefulness of the internet and have subsequently utilized it to report as well as document issues of human rights violation. This has helped people to know their rights and also reduce the occurrence of human rights violations. Part of the recommendations of this, is that more effort should be made towards ensuring that information about human rights violations are made readily available and accessible to all and sundry.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background To The Study

In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which advanced the remarkable proposition that all human beings are, despite other social differences, equal with respect to rights and thus have equal claims to those rights. Thus Human rights have been described as the basic rights of a citizen of a country.

The international human rights regime that the UDHR instituted understands those rights to be nat-ural, not contingent upon the whims of political authority, and that any government’s legitimacy depends upon its ability to secure these rights for its subjects. Jurists, human rights activists and practitioners, scholars, and numerous others have since then striven to hold various political actors accountable to human rights norms and to make human rights efficacious “on the ground.” More recently, political scientists, historians, and social theorists in the past few decades have gone to great lengths to assert (or to disprove) human rights as moral conventions and essential facts, rooted in the essence of humanity, world religions, progressive history, or some combination thereof.

Likewise, a veritable explosion of scholarship in the humanities about human rights as a social movement, as a legal regime, and as a political discourse has, at turns, endorsed or disavowed human rights as a universal project. According to Crystal Parikh in The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights and Literature (2019:1). They are the inalienable rights that people have so as not to be treated unfairly or cruelly, especially by the government. Human rights are recognized globally, by every democratic nation.

The observance of these rights is one of the basic criteria for a nation to belong to the international organizations. According to A.U Abednego in Principles of Government and Politics in Africa (2008:177) “Fundamental human rights are the basic socio-economic, political and moral principles of just and fair treatment of the individual person or groups, generally arrived at by experience, common sense and some consensus, and confirmable either municipal law and or international treaties and conventions, all of which are influenced by the stage of human development, diverse interest and ideologies.

According to Glendon (2002:42) the universal declaration of human rights was adopted by the United Nations general assembly on 10th December 1948 at Paris. This aroused directing from the experience of the Second World War and represented the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled.

In Cameroon, the basic human rights are enshrined in the constitution which includes right to life, right to personal liberty, right to fair hearing, right to freedom of expression and the press, freedom of religion and right to dignity of human person. Cameroon as a nation has witnessed a fluctuating trend in the observance of human rights.

his is a direct off short of the various interventions by the military the polity, under the government of leaders Ahmadou Ahidjo, using the army as the guardians of law and order home office (2004:6). There are also cases of infringement on citizens privacy, restriction of freedom of speech, press, religion and movement, official corruption, violence and discrimination against women; killing of children suspected of witchcraft, female genital mutilation (FGM); child abuse and child sexual exploitation; societal violence; discrimination against persons with disabilities; widowhood practices.

The mass media which serves as a watchdog of the society consist of various means by which information reaches to a large number of people such as television, Radio, movies, Newspaper and internet, mass media is a significant force in modern culture. Sociologists refer to this as a macheted culture. Most recently the internet has increased the wide spread of information dissemination and have dominated the other mass medium such as the radio, television, newspaper, magazine etc.

The internet has assisted in reporting and documenting of human right issues in Cameroon and even beyond. Prior to the twenty first century, people who are violated were hand caped that they cannot tell people that they have been violated, rapped or even beaten. But with the advent of internet cases of human right violations can be easily accessed and reported without stress or hinge.

1.2 Statement of the Research Problem

The issue of human right violations is very critical in our society. Everybody under a democratic dispensation is protected by the constitution. However, there are still cases of violations and infringement on people’s rights.

The internet as a mass medium is expected to uncover cases of infringement and violations on the fundamental rights of the citizens. The problem under investigation is the internet report and documentation of human right violations in Cameroon. Another thing is to examine whether the internet reporting and documentation of human right abuses has helped in reducing human right violations in Cameroon.

1.3 Research Questions

1.3.1 Main Research Question

What is the role of the internet in reporting and documenting human rights violations in Africa?

1.3.2 Specific Research Questions

1. Has the internet (NCHRF) really helped in reporting and documentation of human rights violations in Cameroon?
2. Does the government influence affect the nature of human rights reports by the NCHRF?
3. Has the Internet (NCHRF) report on human rights actually helped to reduce human rights abuse in Cameroon?

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