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Gambia News : 'Tortured' Sierra Leonean journalist flees persecution

Muhamed Oury Bah, freelance Sierra Leonean journalist and former reporter of banned Banjul-based The Independent newspaper has fled The Gambia in the face of persecution by agents of the notoriously feared National Intelligence Agency (NIA). Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources reported that Bah and his family fled The Gambia on January 20, 2008 following repeated physical attacks, and threats against his life.

The journalist who until he fled, was a refugee working as freelancer told MFWA sources that the last straw that broke the camel’s back was on October 17, 2007 when he was physically attacked by people he suspected to be agents of the NIA at Serrekunda, The Gambia’s largest city.

Bah said his assailants told him: “You are responsible for your own problem…because you are a stupid journalist who writes stupid things about The Gambia.” He was one of the journalists of The Independent who were arrested and briefly detained by the Gambian police, immediately after the newspaper was illegally closed down on March 28, 2006.

Again, on June 3, 2006 Bah was arrested and detained at the NIA headquarters on his return to the country, following an interview he granted a newspaper in Guinea about the deteriorating press freedom situation in The Gambia.

Bah said one of the agents told him: “we have warned you several times to stop popping your nose into our affairs, but you remained adamant”. As a result of torture meted out to him, Bah lost one of his teeth.

Previously, Bah had been arbitrarily detained and tortured in home country, Sierra Leone. He was a victim of the military regime of Johnny Paul Koroma that overthrew former President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah’s administration in 1997.

Since 1994, the Gambian government has systematically attacked members of the media. Frequent raids, harassment and deportation of foreign journalists have created a timid working environment in most media houses. In addition, violence, arson, detention and long hours of interrogations by the NIA have forced journalists to flee the country.

Src: Prof. Kwame Karikari