Asiss,
 
Thanks for reposting that old piece. Glad you find it interesting. But
as the story below shows thousands of ordinary Gambians were prevented
from joining the protest march of the journalists because of police
intervention. So that is an improvement.  I agree with you that the
political parties are failing the people. This should not have been a
manifestation by the press and media alone. It seems as the opposition
politicians, with the understandable exception of Mr. Waa Juwara, are
actually waiting for the people to lead. 
 
But let us remain active in our own ways, and extend regards to all
mates at Mitt University and Sundsval.
 
Cheers, 
Modou 
 
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
 
 
Gambia: Thousands Protest Peacefully At Murder of Journalist 

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks 
NEWS
December 22, 2004 
Posted to the web December 22, 2004 
Banjul 
Thousands of people thronged the streets of Banjul on Wednesday in a
peaceful protest against the murder of one of the Gambia's leading
journalists by unidentified gunmen. 
About 300 journalists - virtually the entire press corps of this small
West African country - marched through the streets to protest at the
killing of Deyda Hydara, a newspaper editor and veteran campaigner for
press freedom, who was shot dead last week. 
Thousands of people lined the route of the march shouting slogans of
support, but they refrained from joining the march after the police made
clear that non-journalists would be prevented from taking part in the
demonstration. 
Hydara, the editor of the Gambia's hard-hitting four-times-a-week
newspaper, The Point, was shot three times in the head on the night of
16 December when the car in which he was travelling came under fire. He
died instantly. Two female colleagues who were travelling with him in
the same vehicle were wounded. 
Gambian police said Saturday they were following all leads in the murder
but were still waiting for "a breakthrough". 
"We called today's march in protest against the murder of our colleague
Deyda Hydara and we are very happy that it passed off peacefully," Demba
Jawo, who heads the Gambia Press Union, told IRIN. 
There was a large deployment of police and heavily-armed soldiers in
Banjul as the protesters marched by wearing T-shirts bearing the
portrait of the slain editor and waving posters with his photo. 
One placard said "Freedom of the press is a basic right," while another
read "Who killed Deyda?" 
The marchers handed in letters to the headquarters of the police and
Interior Ministry. Asked about their contents, Jawo said: "Weare
demanding that the security forces take action to stop these kinds of
brutal attacks against journalists which have been going on for a long
time and have finally culminated in the murder of one of our members." 
The government has condemned Hydara's murder and has pledged to find
those responsible. 
However, human rights groups and international press freedom watchdogs
have repeatedly accused President Yahya Jammeh of intimidating the media
and clamping down on press freedom. And privately, many journalists
suspect that thugs with connections to his government may have been
responsible for the killing. 
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists noted in an open
letter to Jammeh that Hydara's death and the recent enactment of
draconian new press laws "come against the background of violent attacks
against independent journalists and media outlets in the Gambia." 
Last April, unidentified gunmen burned down the printing press of
another outspoken newspaper, The Independent, for the second time in six
months. No-one has so far been arrested for that arson attack, nor for
an earlier attempt to burn the newspaper's presses in October 2003. 
Hydara, 58, wrote strongly worded editorials in The Point critical of
the new press laws, which were passed by parliament last week. 
One makes all press offences, including libel, punishable by
imprisonment of up to six months for a first offence and three years for
repeat offenders. 
The other law makes operating licences for private newspapers and radio
stations five times as expensive as before. Owners now have to sign a
bond worth 500,000 dalasis (US$ 17,000), and use their homes as
collateral. 
Leonard Vincent, head of the Africa service of the France-based media
watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), said Hydara was the "impetus"
behind an open letter sent by RSF to President Jammeh, urging him not to
sign the two bills into law. 
He was murdered a day after the RSF letter was despatched to the Gambian
leader, a former army lieutenant who came to power in a 1994 coup. 
Besides editing The Point, Hydara was the Gambia correspondent of the
French news agency AFP and RSF's local man in Banjul. 
 

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