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Gambia News : Rights shadow over Gambia's independence party

"In the space of five years we have seen civil and political rights and press freedom shrink to something intolerable," Leonard Vincent, a spokesman for Paris-based media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), told AFP.

Gambia, a tiny West-African country with a population of 1.5 million people which nestles inside Senegal, is best known for its tourist attractions of sandy beaches and swaying palms which lure thousands of mainly European tourists each year.

President Yahya Jammeh, an outspoken military officer and former wrestler, has ruled the former British colony with an iron fist since seizing power in a bloodless coup in 1994.

"Since 2004 we have seen a long and slow deterioration... now each month that passes, incidents accumulate," he added.

In December 2004 Deyda Hydara, the editor and co-founder of the independent newspaper The Point and the Gambia correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP), was gunned down by unidentified gunmen in his car on the outskirts of Banjul. Hydara was also a correspondent for RSF in Gambia.

Since the killing, the situation has deteriorated for independent journalists in the Gambia. RSF says if journalists are not pushed into exile by the relentless hounding of the government they have learned not to report on things that can get them in trouble with the authorities.

Just two weeks ago veteran Gambian journalist Pap Saine was slapped with multiple charges of publishing false information in The Point newspaper, following a string of court cases against independent journalists.

In November 2008, Amnesty International published a report that stated that Jammeh's opponents are subjected to daily rights violations including torture and unlawful arrests. It also detailed a crackdown by authorities on the media.

So far, the state has not openly commented on the report.

In Gambia itself, many people grumble about the economic and human rights situation.

"Where journalists or individuals are made to disappear without a trace there is a gross violation of human rights," a journalist who wanted to remain anonymous because he feared for his life, told AFP.

In a country which has seen its revenues from tourism drop due to the global economic crisis alongside suffering from high food prices, many citizens question if the money lavished on the six-day independence celebrations could not be better spent on other things.

"The 44th independence celebrations should give an opportunity for people to ask the president why their loved ones should continue to die on horse and donkey carts for lack of ambulances, why their loves ones continue to languish in detention without charge, which is a gross violation of human rights," said a Ghanian student who gave his name as Williams.

The celebrations for Gambian independence kick off Wednesday with a march by security forces and a speech by the president, and will last until next Monday.

Src: Reuters