Cameroon:
New campaign for release of Lapiro

The company Vigier launches a new campaign for the release of the Cameroonese musician Lapiro de Mbanga. Vigier is the company that supplied Lapiro with a guitar that he has used in more than 20 years to create his music.

It is seldom that music companies openly protest against repressions of their artists, but Vigier, the French guitar manufacturer has launched its own campaign for Mbanga.

In a press release, the company writes:

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‘Lapiro de Mbanga, a Vigier artist for over 20 years, has been put in jail for political reasons by the Cameroon government.

Lapiro de Mbanga is very well-known in Cameroon for his political position against injustice and has been a victim of repression on several occasions, but this time things have gone far.

After Cameroon's president, Paul Biya, modified the constitution in his favor, giving himself the right to run for as many mandates as he wants, Lapiro de Mbanga released a CD and DVD to denounce these changes in the constitution in a new song titled, ‘Constitution Constipée’ (‘Constitution Constipated’).

In February 2008, Cameroon was shacked by demonstrations and the government jumped on this opportunity to arrest artists like Lapiro and his friend, Joe la Conscience, accusing both of them of looting when in fact they were helping the population.

At the same time the government confiscated all of Lapiro’s CDs and DVDs of ‘Constitution Constipée’.

Lapiro de Mbanga has been sentenced to three years in jail and has been in prison since September 2008.

His trial is scheduled at the end of December 2008 and Lapiro needs our support.’

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Earlier this year the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN and Freemuse protested against the three-year prison sentence and exorbitant fine imposed on Lapiro de Mbanga (real name: Pierre Roger Lambo Sandjo)

Lapiro de Mbanga: ‘Prison’ – video on YouTube