Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)

Gérard Adja, the first vice president of the Organisation to Build a United Togo, has been in detention since January 13, 2013. Adja is a leader of the Let’s Save Togo Collective, an opposition group that held a demonstration on January 10, 2013.

Thirty IFEX members protested the sentencing of bloggers, citizen journalists and rights activists, jailed for up to 13 years in the biggest ever trial of pro-democracy activists in Vietnam.

The first of the attacks occurred on 9 December when a mob of New Patriotic Party (NPP) sympathisers chased and vandalised a vehicle conveying a crew from the privately-owned television station Metro TV to the NPP’s office in Osu, a suburb of Accra.

Security officers from the Gambian Police Services stormed the Banjul residence of exiled freelance journalist Abubacarr Saidykhan and arrested and detained his younger brother, Ousman Saidykhan, at the Kairaba police station, 12 kilometres from the capital, Banjul.

Imam Baba Leigh, an Islamic cleric in Banjul, was picked up from his home by plain-clothes officers from the National Intelligence Agency. Sources say the arrest is linked to comments he made condemning the execution of nine death row inmates in August.

The Media Foundation for West Africa expressed its frustrations to the ECOWAS Commission and concerns that some member states had refused to comply with the decisions of the Court, citing the Gambia as an example.

MFWA welcomes the move by Gambian authorities to drop charges against two journalists for seeking permission to peacefully protest the execution of death row inmates, but calls for investigation into death threats against journalists.

Justin Anani, a journalist for Le Crocodile weekly was physically assaulted by police officers while covering a police clamp down on demonstrators belonging to opposition and human rights groups in Lome, the capital of Togo.