A bandage on his head, a vacant stare, a broken voice. The image of Jacques Bertrand Mang, filmed from a hospital bed in Douala last spring, shocked a segment of Cameroonian public opinion. On 1 July 2026, an opposition party put the case back on the table. The Cameroon Democratic Union (UDC), through its president Patricia Tomaino Ndam Njoya, condemned with renewed vigor the treatment the activist says he endured, reminding that such practices are prohibited by the Cameroonian Constitution.
The party said it learned "with great concern" that the political activist may have been the victim of torture and inhuman treatment. Cautious on legal grounds, the UDC qualified its condemnation with a sizable caveat: if the reported facts were proven, they would constitute a serious violation of fundamental rights. The wording reflects a party keen to denounce without prejudging the judicial truth.
To grasp the significance of this statement, one must trace the chronology. It was on the evening of 2 April 2026 that activist Jacques Bertrand Mang was detained by police elements in the New‑Bell district of Douala. According to several accounts, he was arrested in the Shell New‑Bell neighbourhood after being followed for several days by an armed civilian, then taken to the New Bell police station where he says he was subjected to torture before being transferred to the psychiatric ward of Laquintinie Hospital in Douala, a move he claims lacked any medical justification.
The confinement, officially presented as a medical measure, sparked an outcry. Lawyer Ntimbane Bomo demanded Mang's immediate release, denouncing an abusive detention and the disregard for medical consent. In an open letter to the Cameroonian Medical Council, the attorney invoked a cardinal principle of medical law: even a seriously ill person has the right to refuse treatment; this is the sacrosanct principle of consent to medical care, regarded as a human right and liberty.
The man eventually regained his freedom. Held since early April at Laquintinie Hospital after a forceful police arrest, the activist was released, his detention having provoked strong indignation among several Cameroonian human‑rights defenders who described the episode as a disguised political arrest. Yet his departure from the hospital did not close the case. Mang left Laquintinie, but the matter remains open. The complaint against Brenda Biya is still pending, and the circumstances of his detention demand clear answers.
The context of the arrest fuels all the questions. In March 2026, Jacques Bertrand Mang announced he was filing a complaint against Brenda Biya, daughter of President Paul Biya, for praising homosexuality, indecency and corrupting the youth, following a viral video in which she allegedly sought a relationship with a woman in Cameroon. The timing is striking: only a few days before his arrest, Mang lodged the complaint against Brenda Biya. This detail reshapes the interpretation of the case.
The activist’s trajectory marks him as a maverick of the political scene. Born on 30 January 1987 in Edéa, he is a Cameroonian politician, activist and entrepreneur, known for his involvement with opposition parties, notably the Cameroon Party for National Reconciliation (PCRN) and the UPP. His campaigns against urban squalor and his high‑profile accusations against Cabral Libii — which he denies — have made him both a media figure and a polarising one.
The UDC is not the only voice raising alarm. This Tuesday, a member of the MRC reacted to newly released footage. He said he had seen video showing the activist "being assaulted by police", a scene he condemns unequivocally, denouncing an "arbitrary arrest" and the abusive use of force by an officer who also allegedly broke the victim’s phone. This shows that the dossier, far from fading, continues to fuel public debate.
What remains more pressing than any press release is the question of judicial follow‑up. The UDC’s condemnation places the Mang case at the heart of a broader debate on the treatment of whistle‑blowers and the use of psychiatric institutions for alleged neutralisation. So far, no court decision assigning responsibility has been made public. Developments are awaited, and Cameroonian public opinion, as well as the diaspora, will watch closely to see whether the institutions can shed light on this affair.
