Gambia : Jammeh’s inauguration marred by impunity and contempt for press
since journalist’s ...
Écrit par RSF.ORG
15-12-2006
Reporters Without Borders today reminded leaders from democratic countries
attending ceremonies in Banjul during the next two days to mark the start
of another five-year term for Gambian President Yahya Jammeh that 16
December will be the second anniversary of journalist Deyda Hydara’s still
unpunished murder.

The organisation said it particularly warned Taiwanese Prime Minister Su
Tseng-Chang, whose government is a strong supporter of the Jammeh regime,
against continuing to back a ruler who is on its list of press freedom
predators.

“With 10 journalists arrested in 2006, one missing, many others in exile,
countless unpunished crimes in which the president’s supporters are
suspected of being the perpetrators or accomplices, a murdered
journalist’s memory besmirched by the government and a permanent climate
of fear - Jammeh’s record on press freedom is appalling,” Reporters
Without Borders said.

“Gambia’s president proclaims his contempt for the rules of democracy,”
the press freedom organisation added. “We appeal to the leaders of
democratic governments who are being wooed by this aggressive regime to
not let themselves be accomplices to these crimes and to instead help
Gambia’s journalists recover their freedom.”

Many foreign heads of state and government have been invited to the
sumptuous, two-day ceremony starting tomorrow at which Jammeh, who seized
power in a 1994 coup and who won a questionable reelection victory in
September with 67.4 per cent of the vote, will be reinstalled for another
term. Jammeh has said it will be a “very great victory celebration and an
opportunity for Gambian youth to develop their musical talents.”

Co-founder and editor of the newspaper The Point and Banjul correspondent
for Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Reporters Without Borders, Hydara was
shot dead at the wheel of his car in a street adjoining a police barracks
as he was driving two employees home on the evening of 16 December 2004.
He had previously received threats from the National Intelligence Agency,
which had him under surveillance a few minutes before he was gunned down.

No serious attempt was made to identify either the perpetrators or
instigators of this murder. The only official statement from the Gambian
officials responsible for the investigation came six months later.
Referring to Hydara as “provocative,” it absurdly suggested that the
murder could have been linked to his sex life.

Asked about Hydara’s murder in September of this year, President Jammeh
said: “I don’t believe in killing people. I believe in locking you up for
the rest of your life. Then maybe at some point we say: ‘Oh, he is too old
to be fed by the state,’ we release him and let him become destitute. Then
everybody will learn a lesson from him.”

To a question from a journalist about the frequent arbitrary arrests of
journalists and the illegal closure of the privately-owned biweekly The
Independent, Jammeh replied: “Let the world go to hell. If I have good
reasons of closing down any newspaper offices I will do so.”

The Independent, whose printing press was torched in 2004 by men
identified as National Guardsmen by an opposition parliamentarian, has
been illegally prevented from publishing since 28 March and its premises
have been placed under a seal. One of its journalists, Lamin Fatty, was
held for more than a month without seeing a lawyer and is being prosecuted
under a draconian law providing for long prison terms.

The Independent’s general manager Madi Ceesay, who is also president of
the Gambia Press Union, and the newspaper’s editor, Musa Saidykhan, were
themselves held incommunicado in a completely illegal manner for nearly
three weeks, from 28 March to 20 Avril.

At least 10 journalists have been arrested and held in a similar fashion
this year. One of them “Chief” Ebrima Manneh, who worked for the
privately-owned pro-government Daily Observer, has been missing since 7
July.

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