(MFWA/IFEX) – The following is a 16 February 2007 MFWA press release: Justice for tortured Gambian journalist The government of President Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia and its agents during last year (2006, an election year) launched another phase of their long-standing repressive campaign against the independent media and journalists in the country. This campaign, […]
(MFWA/IFEX) – The following is a 16 February 2007 MFWA press release:
Justice for tortured Gambian journalist
The government of President Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia and its agents during last year (2006, an election year) launched another phase of their long-standing repressive campaign against the independent media and journalists in the country.
This campaign, focused on arbitrary detention and torture, has left many journalists escaping into exile. In March 2006, when the government announced a foiled coup attempt, scores of people including lawyers, members of the opposition, ordinary people and journalists were arrested, illegally detained and suffered all sorts of cruelty including torture.
“I was stripped naked while live-electric shocks were administered on all over my body including my genitals. I was told by my torturers that electric shocks on my genitals were meant to make me impotent”, recalled one such victim, Musa Saidykhan, Editor-In-Chief of “The Independent”, a banned bi-weekly Banjul-based newspaper that has never had peace since Jammeh took power in 1994.
Armed soldiers and policemen arrested Saidykhan, who is now exiled, on the night of March 27, 2006 and took him to the notoriously feared National Intelligence Agency (NIA). He was held incommunicado for 22 days without any charge during which he was tortured until he became unconscious. The continuous torture left physical scars on his back, legs, arms, and his right hand, which was broken in three places.
In Gambia, journalists are frequently detained incommunicado without trial for long periods because of their work. At the moment, Chief Ebrima Manneh, a reporter for a pro-government newspaper, “Daily Observer”, according to sources, is languishing in a cell at a police station in a border town east of the country. Since his arrest on July 11, 2006, Manneh has been held incommunicado for 213 days in various cells, before his whereabouts were detected last month. The government has consistently denied holding him. Manneh is alleged to have passed on unspecified “damaging” information to an unnamed foreign journalist.
With regard to Manneh, the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) demands that, in the absence of any valid charges against him, he should be released immediately or be formally charged and brought before an independent court without delay.
The MFWA urges individuals, organisations and institutions that support freedom of expression to put pressure on President Jammeh to end the suppression of freedom of speech and expression in the Gambia.
Issued by the MFWA, Accra, February 16, 2007.
The MFWA is a regional independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Accra. It was founded in 1997 to defend and promote the rights and freedom of the media and all forms of expression.
