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CAMEROON-UNREST-POLITICS-SWITZERLAND-DEMONSTRATION
Protests mar Cameroon president’s visit to Geneva: reports
GENEVA, June 26, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Some 40 protestors entered a five-star
Geneva hotel this week where Cameroon’s president was staying and scuffled
with his security staff in the lobby, according to police and Swiss media
reports.
Geneva police were called to the luxury Intercontinental Hotel shortly
after noon (10:00 GMT) on Tuesday, after around 40 protesters had “penetrated
into the lobby”, spokesman Jean-Philippe Brandt told AFP.
“They were demonstrating against the current government in Cameroon,” he
said, adding that it had taken about 30 minutes to “re-establish the peace”.
According to the Tribune de Geneve daily, the demonstrators were
Cameroonian opposition figures living in exile who had come to protest the
country’s long-time president Paul Biya who was a guest at the hotel.
It said the 86-year-old, who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, had been
staying at the hotel since Sunday.
The paper reported that there had been a “fight” between the demonstrators
and the president’s security personnel, but Brandt said he could not confirm
that information.
When contacted by AFP, the hotel refused to confirm Biya’s presence in the
establishment or that the unauthorised demonstration that had taken place
there.
Biya’s office did tweet on Sunday that the president and his wife had left
the country “for a short private stay in Europe.”
The Cameroonian embassy in Bern meanwhile voiced concern in a statement
over what it said was a planned “violent” demonstration in Geneva next
Saturday by Cameroonian nationals living in various European countries “to
protest against the presence of the Head of State, His Excellence Paul Biya,
in Switzerland.”
“The embassy calls on the Cameroonian community in Switzerland and in
neighbouring countries to turn their back on such demonstrations, which for
some time have been an expression of hatred, violence and tribalism, which
are all contrary to patriotism and love of Cameroon.”
BSS/AFP/RY/20:05 hrs