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Gambia News : Amnesty says 'fear rules' in Gambia

Opponents of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh are subjected to daily rights violations including torture, Amnesty International said Tuesday in an damning report entitled "Gambia: Fear Rules".

"Routinely, people are unlawfully arrested, without warrants, are not told the reasons for their arrest, and often do not have access to their families or lawyers. Often they are not charged within the 72 hours mandated by the law," Amnesty researcher Tania Bernath told AFP.

"There is a whole range of violations, torture is often used and for those charged... they don't experience fair trial," she said.

Published in Nigeria's administrative capital Abuja, the study chronicled right abuses in recent years in this small west African country which is nestled inside Senegal.

Amnesty said suspects were arbitrarily arrested and if they make it to court at all many did not get fair trials.

Fear pervades across-the-board and there have been cases of people disappearing, the rights watchdog said.

"There is an awful number of people that are unlawfully detained... these cases are still going on and something needs to be done to prevent them in the future," Bernath said.

The report was launched on the sidelines of a two-week-long meeting of members of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights which opened on Monday.

The situation has worsened since a foiled coup attempt against Jammeh in March 2006 which saw dozens of civilians and soldiers arrested, Amnesty said.

"Against a backdrop of arbitrary unlawful arrests, detentions and other human rights violations, all public protests have ceased in Gambia.

"Lawyers are reluctant to take on human rights cases for fear of reprisals, and families of the victims are afraid to speak out.

"The media, for the most part, censors itself in the face of arrests, fines, threats and physical attacks that have been meted out to those accused of criticizing the government," the report said.

Ugona Duru of the Media Foundation for West Africa said "there is a high level of fear and tension" among Gambian journalists.

She slammed Gambia for its "contempt and absolute disregard" of a June ruling by the regional ECOWAS court ordering it to release journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh, who was arrested in 2006 after the foiled coup.

Amnesty called on the international community to exert pressure on Gambia to stop the abuses and on Banjul itself to cease the violations.

"The situation in the Gambia is not well known, the civil society and the judiciary systems are weak," said Bernath.

Launching the report outside Gambia, the seat of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights "highlights the irony that these violations are happening under the nose of the commission," she said.

"Just as the African Commission (on human rights) looks at human rights violations in other countries, it must take greater attention to what is going in The Gambia," she added.

The 57-page report cites dozens of cases of abuses, among them the murder of an outspoken journalist and former AFP correspondent in Gambia, Deyda Hydara, in 2005.

The same year 50 migrants, among them 44 Ghanaians, were reportedly killed by security forces using machetes and axes at a farm outside Banjul.