RIGHTS-GAMBIA: Who Killed Deyda Hydara?

• by Ebrima Sillah (dakar)
• Thursday, June 18, 2009
• Inter Press Service

Eight journalists - the first vice president of the Gambia Press Union Sarata Jabbi, who is a nursing mother with a six-month-old infant, the GPU's secretary general Emil Touray, and treasurer (GPU) Pa Modou Faal; the editor and two deputies of the Point newspaper, Pap Saine, Ebrima Sawaneh and Abba Gibba respectively; and the editor-in-chief of Foroyaa Newspaper, Sam Sarr, and and one of his reporters, Abubacarr Saidykhan - have been held incommunicado since their arrests, and neither their lawyers nor colleagues and family members were allowed access to them.

Seven of them were detained on Jun. 15: Gambian law allows for a suspect to be held for 72 hours without charge. Moments before this period would have expired, the eight were arraigned without legal representation before the Kanifing Magistrate court seven kilometres outside of the capital Banjul.

The journalists pleaded not guilty to the charges preferred against them and were then denied bail and sent to Mile Two Prison which is the state central prison. Jabbi was granted bail of around $7,500, but according to the GPU, it was too late in the day for her family and other supporters to raise the money.

The journalists were arrested following a press release by the Gambia Press Union on Jun. 12, reacting to an interview by the president on state television, during which he denied his government’s involvement in the 2004 murder of veteran Gambian journalist Deyda Hydara. In the interview, the president said 'the night Hydara was killed, the Senegalese ex-husband of one of his female colleagues with whom he was having a love affair was in town. So those who want to know who killed journalist Deyda Hydara should instead go and ask him in his grave.' Reaction to this latest onslaught on Gambian journalists has been swift. New York-based press freedom group the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says, 'It is outrageous that security forces should detain journalists from The Point and Foraya for carrying a press release. All seven journalists should be released immediately.'

Other right groups like Paris-based Reporters Without Borders described the arrest and continued detention of the journalists as further 'bigotry of Yahya Jammeh towards the media and independent journalists which is unparalleled anywhere in West Africa.' GPU president Ndey Tapha Sosseh said, 'We remain steadfast and unyielding in our demand for journalists to operate in the Gambia freely without the continuous state harassment and interference.' Reporters Without Borders’ has for the past several years listed Gambia and its president Yahya Jammeh as ‘Press Freedom Predators’. Gambia is ranked 137th out of 173 countries on the organisation’s worldwide press freedom index. The handful of independent media operate in the Gambia under a climate of fear and self-censorship, particularly since Hydara's unsolved murder and the 2006 arrest of journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh who has not been seen or heard from since.

This latest onslaught on GPU executive and editors and reporters of the independent press is likely going to force many journalists into self-censorship.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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