Darboe calls for International travel ban against Jammeh & co, if he executes!
The
Gambia’s opposition leader Ousainou Darboe has called for international
sanctions against President Yahya Jammeh, if reports of his execution
of the country’s death row prisoners are true; according to AFP news
reports today.
“It’s time for the international
community to take measures that will make Jammeh conform with accepted
international standards,” United Democratic Party leader is reported to
have told AFP.
He is reported to have explained that
throughout his career as a politician he had never asked the
international community to take any hard measures against The Gambia,
but wants to appeal to the international community, that if Jammeh
carries out the executions, it should order a travel ban for him and all
his ministers.
He further advised that Jammeh should be thinking of securing food
for the Gambians and providing them with health care, better education
and better living condition than threatening to execute their brethren.
The
Gambia’s former colonial power Britain is also reported to have
expressed concern at the reports, which the Gambian government has not
confirmed but said that death row prisoners had exhausted their rights
of appeal. Amnesty International said Friday that nine prisoners had
been executed, less than a week after Jammeh pledged to hang all those
on death row, estimated to number at least 47, by the middle of
September.
According to Amnesty, those executed
Thursday night included one woman and two Senegalese citizens. The
hangings were reported to have taken place only a day after the African
Union sent a special envoy to plead with Jammeh not to carry out his
threat.
Amnesty International said that it had
“received credible reports that nine persons were executed last night in
Gambia and that more persons are under threat of imminent executions
today and in the coming days.”
A Gambian security source told AFP that
all death row prisoners had been “transferred to one place” late
Thursday but he and other sources could not confirm the executions.
However the security source said, “The man is determined to execute the prisoners and he will do so,” referring to Jammeh.
In a televised address Sunday to mark
the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, Jammeh said: “By the middle of next
month, all the death sentences would have been carried out to the
letter. There is no way my government will allow 99 percent of the
population to be held to ransom by criminals. All those guilty of
serious crimes and (who) are condemned will face the full force of the
law. All punishments prescribed by law will be maintained in the country
to ensure that criminals get what they deserve,” Jammeh said.
He added that crimes like banditry, drug
trafficking or illicit use, homosexuality, murder, terrorism and other
subversive activities against either the state or the people would not
be tolerated.
Alistair
Burt, a British deputy foreign minister, said in a statement Saturday:
“I am deeply concerned over reports that nine prisoners on death row in
The Gambia have been executed following comments by President Jammeh
that all death row prisoners would now be executed.”
“I urge the Gambian authorities to halt
any further executions. The UK Government opposes all use of the death
penalty as a matter of principle.”
Burt said Gambia had not carried out any
executions since 1981, while Amnesty said the last one officially
reported was in 1985. However Gambian sources have told AFP that people
were still being hanged secretly up until 2007.
Courtesy of AFP