"My dad just clocked 64 in January and not in the very best of health. Do the math on what a year in the direst of conditions in the state prison, throw in unpalatable food and hard labour would do to a man his age and see what you come up with it. Might as well start putting away for a casket!"Brother, I feel your pain. Your title below summed it all and any honest person cannot but say that loud. How long must we continue to be plucked one by one while we stand and watch. This illegal detention was calculated and deliberate. At 64, a go slow urgency is like a death sentence. Now, watch the Judiciary play their real role - delay, postpone, sleep over, vacation, and upcountry this case to death. They were given the luxury, thus, they will milk it until blood comes out. As long as we could never see the urgency in stopping the continued illegal detention of the innocent we will come here time and time again reacting. We should not wait until we are in your shoes to realize where the shoe hurts. Continue to stand up even if you are alone.Joe
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 20:25:23 +0200
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: I Lost Faith In the Gambian Justice System; A Miscarriage of Justice - Says Femi Peters Junior! Culled from Gainako
To: [log in to unmask]
I Lost Faith In the Gambian Justice System; A Miscarriage of Justice - Says Femi Peters Junior!
Femi Peters Senior UDPBy: Femi Peters Jr (Chelsea)
I would have given a lot for it to be a joke. Sadly, the matter at hand wasn’t. It was about as hilarious as cackling at a funeral.
April 1st 2010...the day justice in The Gambia hit the buffers. Drew its last. Curled up and gave out. Ceased to be. Got coffined and earthed.
Take your pick.
We all have dates in our lives etched in our minds forever. Mine are 29th October and 9th November. I will explain why some other time. I will always remember where I was, what I was doing, what I was attired in when I got the call that my dad (the man who sired me, gave me all his names, paid my fees, raised me right and instilled in me the love for books) has had his freedom curtailed. I mean, it is not daily the average Gambian guy’s dad gets accommodated in Mile Two.
I was reading the Metro paper on a bad weathered Thursday afternoon when my phone shrilled. It was my dad’s baby sister, aunty Acy to me. ‘I got news about your dad. Guess what?’ My heart took a leap. Ever the pessimistic one, I blurted out, ‘h-he got jailed?’ hoping I was wrong. ‘Yeah, he got a year plus D10, 000.00 fine and hard labour.’ I had the experience of being mad and sad at the same time and, take it from me; it is not a very pleasant one. It is that sinking feeling when you feel there is not much left to breath for.
When the miserable red mist cleared, my first thought was my ten year old brother, Lenrie Peters. Growing up, I was lucky to have my dad around me, help with my home work, help me transform from a baby to a toddler, boy to a man, answer my questions and simply being there. As I write this, it’s not with pride I say I took those things for granted. You know, daddy leaving home in the morning and be back in the evening is as guaranteed as scorching, throat-parched weather on any given Friday afternoon in Banjul.
Now my baby brother will be denied that opportunity of having dad around. All the basic, normal things dads do for their seeds has been heartlessly yanked away from him. All because the APRC government thought my dad possessing a loudspeaker and initiating a rally is worth a year behind bars.
My dad just clocked 64 in January and not in the very best of health. Do the math on what a year in the direst of conditions in the state prison, throw in unpalatable food and hard labour would do to a man his age and see what you come up with it. Might as well start putting away for a casket!
I lost faith in Gambian justice when, ten years ago this week, students were gunned down and it was left at that. Forget me being caught that day and given a pasting my dad has never given me, which resulted in a bad knee I will take to my grave. My dad being banged up for exercising his right as a citizen leaves a bad taste in the mouth of any sane individual. I can’t remember knowing anyone who had to grow up with his dad in jail. To have to happen so close to home, to my baby brother, is a nightmare.
I’ve been made to understand the order to jail my dad came from above and I’m not on about the flaming sky.That don’t surprise me one bit. If journalists can get detained, tortured, one killed, one disappeared completely off the face of the earth, printing press torched, political opponents get arrested, refuse permission to hold rallies and existing in a society where such is how it unfolds, jailing the man whom I’ve looked up to all my life is a drop in the ocean, if you look at the bigger picture.
Home, since 22nd July 1994, is not what we know it for what it had been. It has transformed in a very un-Gambian kind of way and it is not getting better.
Today, it is my dad down for a year for his political beliefs. Tomorrow it would be your mum doing a bid whose only crime was looking funny at a portrait of the president. This madness will not stop. A complete change at the helm is called for and the opportunity for that is at next year’s general elections should it be free, free and held in a conducive environment. Knowing what we all know, there is a better chance of God lowering a ladder and we all scurry up to heaven than that happening.
I had always thought April 10th 2000 was the day I felt less good about being Gambian. I erred. April 1st 2010 it is and will always be.
God willing, my dad will survive this and I pray his dream of a democratic Gambia would be in his lifetime…
PS: Thanks for all your calls and emails during these trying times. You know who you are. God bless and keep you all.
Courtesy of the Gainako newspaper
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Yero,
I hope it is ok with you and your fellow editors at Gainako by my sharing this poignant write-up of a son on his father's unfair, unconscionable and illegal incaceration. Yaya and his goons will not break and connot suffocate the will of good and truthful persons.
Best,
Mboge
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