The Cameroon government has been slow to approve the legal status of a number of religious groups, including some from the United States, whose applications have been pending for years in several cases, a new report has found.

The Cameroon 2013 International Religious Freedom Report released recently by the United States Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor disclosed that: “The government has approved only one religious group in the last 15 years and none since 2010.”

According to the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization (MINATD), incomplete application submissions and lengthy background investigations contributed to approval delays.

The report however noted that although by law groups must register, numerous unregistered small religious groups operated freely due to the government’s policy of “administrative tolerance.” While only 47 religious groups are legally registered, hundreds more operated without official government authorization.

It is worth recalling that to register; a religious group must legally qualify as a religious congregation, defined as “any group of natural persons or corporate bodies whose vocation is divine worship” or “any group of persons living in community in accordance with a religious doctrine.”

The religious group must submit a request for authorization, including the group’s charter describing planned activities, the names and functions of the group’s officials, and a declaration of commitment to comply with the law on freedom of association, to the prefectural office, who then forwards the documents to MINATD. MINATD reviews the file and sends it to the presidency with a recommendation to approve or deny.

The president may then grant authorization by presidential decree. Official recognition confers no general tax benefits but allows religious groups to receive real estate as a tax-free gift for the conduct of their activities, allows missionaries to receive visas with longer validity, and permits public gathering and worship.

MINATD may issue an order to suspend any religious group for “disturbing public order,” which is not defined in the law, and the president may dissolve any previously authorized religious organization that “deviates from its initial focus.” This is perhaps why the report did fail to mention that in August last year, “government closed at least 34 churches nationwide, most of which were unregistered.”

“Local administration officials accused the predominantly evangelical churches of disturbing public order with raucous services, extorting the spiritually vulnerable, destabilizing family structure, and practicing unsafe “spiritual medicine” such as exorcisms, which reportedly led to some deaths,” the report added.

Communication Minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary at the time publicly criticized the practice of encouraging worshippers to seek spiritual medicine in lieu of professional medical assistance.

Church leaders publicly protested the closures, and many stated the justification the government used to close their churches had no basis. The government allowed all of the churches to reopen in early September.