The Banjul Mullahs. At It Again!!!!

Mullah(Imam) Touray, Mullah (Imam) Fatty and the rest of the membership of the Supreme Islamic Council
feeling emboldened by the ease with which they silenced and then banished Imam BaKawsu Fofana with the active
encouragement and support of the government of Yaya Jammeh are at it again.

Now that they have succeeded in silencing Imam BaKawsu, they have directed their attention at the very few civic
groups left in the country who dear challenge the status quo. Amongst them is Gambia Committee Against
Traditional Practices - GAMCOTRAP - with Dr. Isatou Touray, its Executive Director and Assistant Executive
Director Amie Bojang Sissoho. They have been arrested and taken to Police HQ for reasons that have yet
to be declared officially. These women are not only professional women through and through but they are
dedicated and committed activists whose paramount objective is to elevate issues affecting the welfare of
Gambian women to the fore of the national stage with a view to finding solutions to their problems.

Obviously, the issue of Genital Cutting is not only a culturally sensitive issue, it is also political. The Mullahs in Banjul
would also like us to believe that it is also religious. Thus the move against GAMCOTRAP and its leaders because of
the significant gains they have made in discouraging the practice and evidenced by the numerous traditional
practitioner who have laid down their tools of trade and have moved on to other vocations within the community.

Obviously Mullahs Touray and Fatty do not like these advances one bit. So, they are calling in the cavalry once more
to silence these women. Typical of the government of Yaya Jammeh, if they cannot level political charges against you,
they will level economic ones. This is what Yaya Jammeh and his Supreme Islamic Council are doing to these two ladies
i.e level bogus corruption charges, hold them in jail without charge and without bail or release them with the proviso that
they report to the National Intelligence Agency daily. We must not allow this to happen to these women under any
circumstances.

I have said this before and I will say it again, this is the beginning of the election season and Yaya Jammeh will jail any
one he feels has the potential to stand in his way for a third term as head of the A(F)PRC government.

In order to avoid the mistakes of the past of not bringing these human rights abuses to the attention of the Human
Rights groups in a timely fashion, I am copying this to the Amnesty International, Human Rights watch and other
organizations with the hope that they will start monitoring the situation before Yaya Jammeh says that he doesn't know
where these two ladies are. As I write this, they are in police custody at the main Police Headquarters.

FREE DR ISATOU TOURAY and AMIE BOJANG SISSOHO NOW.

A. Koroma