UPDATE: Valsero was released, along with Maurice Kamto and dozens of other arbitrarily detained supporters of the opposition, on October 5, 2019 after nearly nine months of detention. All charges against him have been dropped.

Cameroonian rapper Gaston Philippe Abe Abe, better known by his stage name Valsero, has been imprisoned without charge in his country’s capital, Yaoundé, since January 26, 2019. A longtime critic of the ruling Paul Biya regime in Cameroon, Valsero was participating in widespread opposition protests when he and 115 other activists were arrested and detained. His habeas corpus rights have been repeatedly denied and he still awaits charge and trial.

Valsero has been rapping in Cameroon since 1990, and has been vocal in his opposition to the country’s government since the release of his first album in 2008. Singing songs with titles like “Çe pays tue les jeunes” (“This country kills the youth”), “Ne me parlez plus de ce pays” (“Don’t talk about this country to me anymore”), and “Lettre au president” (“Letter to the President”), Valsero has become a well-respected and widely-listened to voice of the youth opposition across Cameroon in recent years. In September 2018, he declared his support for Biya’s political opponent Maurice Kamto, leader of the Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC), though he fiercely guards his political independence and never joined the opposition party.

Following widespread suspicion of election fraud in the October 2018 presidential election, the MRC organized a series of peaceful “White Marches” throughout Cameroon and in diaspora communities in London, Berlin, Brussels and Paris scheduled to last from January 26 to February 2. However, Cameroon’s Minister of Internal Affairs declared the marches illegal and “an organized act of provocation” dangerous to public order. As such, police moved in on demonstrators in the streets of Yaoundé on January 26, and over 100 peaceful protestors were arrested. On January 28, authorities detained Kamto himself in the country’s economic center, the city of Douala.

Valsero, who happened to be in town with his daughter during the marches, briefly visited the demonstration to urge calm on both sides but did not participate, and was later detained while waiting for a taxi in the city center. His friends and family have received no news regarding the reason for his arrest, and have only been able to speculate that it was related to his influence with the country’s youth and his music’s criticism of the regime.

Valsero, Kamto, and hundreds of supporters have remained in detention since January 2019. In March, a Yaoundé court denied the right of habeas corpus to the detained opposition activists during a five minute hearing, leaving them essentially detained indefinitely without charge and without the prospect of a fair trial any time in the near future. Companions of Valsero fear that when charges are brought against him, these could be punishable with the death penalty.

In the days following Valsero’s arrest, fellow Cameroonian artists—even those disagreeing with his outspoken political strategies—voiced their support for him and for his immediate, unconditional release. The Voice Project joins in these demands, and asks you to do the same by sending a letter in support of this campaign for Valsero’s immediate freedom.