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Gambia: Campaign for media freedom in Gambia launched

The systematic violation of press freedom, other civil liberties and basic human rights in The Gambia by the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction government since 1994 to date has forced the Network of African of Expression Organisations and Media Foundation for West Africa into launching a campaign to end the repression of, and violent attacks on, media freedoms and freedom of expression.

The NAFEO and MFWA particularly demanded the release of one of the Jammeh-led government's latest victims, Chief Ebrima B Manneh. Mr Manneh is a journalist at the pro-government Daily Observer newspaper who was arrested by the National Intelligence Agency in the country"s capital, Banjul, on July 11, 2006.

He has since been imprisoned without access to communicate with any one, and is being transferred from one prison to another to elude rights campaigners and his relatives. The government and the NIA continued to deny detaining him, and claimed not to know Mr Manneh’s whereabouts.

Launching the campaign at the Ghana International Press Centre in Accra Monday, Kwame Karikari, Executive Director of MFWA, recounted the horrendous repression of media freedom and freedom of expression perpetrated by President Yahya Jammeh during his military and civilian administrations.

Professor Karikari asked the media, human rights activists and lovers of freedom of expression to rally behind the campaign by signing right-to-free-expression signatures and sending petitions and letters to President Jammeh, the African Union, Economic Community of West African States and Ghanaian President John Agyekum Kufour, who is also the Chairman of the AU.

According to a press release issued by the MFWA in Accra on Wednesday, the campaign will be targeted at African leaders, African and international human rights organisations, United Nations human rights agencies, and governments with relations with The Gambia to pressurise the Jammeh government to stop violent violation of free expression.

The campaign consists of the launch and distribution of "Free Chief Ebrima B Manneh" posters and a 63-page booklet, "The Gambia: Violations of Press Freedom by the government of President Yahya Jammeh, 1994 - 2006." Explaining the reason for the launch of the campaign based on empirical documentation, Prof Karikari stated, "The fight for human rights must be based on the truth and verifiable facts."

The book details the government’s abuse of the rights of media practitioners, and ends with appendices on lists of19 journalists forced into exile by the regime, and 126 Gambians known to have been arrested since March, 2006; and the draconian media laws enacted by President Jammeh. It also includes the uninvestigated murder of Deyda Hydara by suspected pro-Jammeh thugs.

The release said the campaign is aimed at exposing human rights violations in The Gambia, particularly freedom of expression and media rights, which are little known to Africans and the international community. "The MFWA will also send a formal presentation of the campaign to the African Union Chairman, Ghana’s President Kufour, to intervene and demand President Jammeh to free Chief Manneh, and respect freedom of expression."

The MFWA is a regional independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation founded in 1997 to defend and promote the rights and freedoms of the media and other forms of expression in the West African sub-region.