Womens' Right Movement Petitions Jammeh

His Excellency

Sheikh Prof. Alh. Yahya A.J.J Jammeh
President of the Republic of the Gambia
State House
Banjul

Date: 10th August, 2009

Your Excellency, The Womens' Rights movement of the Gambia would like to appeal to your good office regarding the matter of the jailed Journalists and in particular regarding Sarata Jabbi's case.

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that Sarata is a lactating mother of a 7 month old baby boy, who is incarcerated with his mother at the Mile 2 Central prison. The baby is completely innocent of the circumstances for which his mother is serving sentence. We are of the opinion that the baby's tender age requires that he be with his mother at all times, as no other person or institution can assume her role and responsibilities towards him.

The baby boy is totally dependent on his mother for feeding, care and support, which must be provided in an environment free from distress and frustration. The prison in which she has been incarcerated is not such an environment. In the light of this, we urge you to prevail in this matter with urgency, taking into consideration your government's commitment to upholding the basic principles of human rights and respecting the Conventions, Constitution and Policies it has ratified.

Your Excellency, it is not in the best interest of the child that he be obliged to formula feeding: his mother's choice to breastfeed him should be upheld: it is thus essential that they not be separated. The situation in which she currently finds herself threatens the proper nutrition of the child.

We also urge you to take into consideration that breastfeeding is a natural life saving process that only a mother can give to a child. Anything that threatens this puts the health and survival of the child at great risk.

We are aware that children are the most vulnerable groups with regards to nutrition due to the combined increased risk of death due to diarrhoea, pneumonia and under nutrition. This child faces this possibility if the mother remains in prison. An alternative to incarcerating a breast feeding or pregnant woman is to give a non-custodial or non-institutional sentence. This is the first option that should be considered given the special circumstances of Sarata and her seven months old baby who is totally dependent on her.

We wanted to take this occasion to remind you of some of the relevant articles regarding the matter of nursing/lactating and pregnant women in the International Conventions to which The Gambia is a State Party.
The African Charter on the Rights of the Child

Article 30: Children of Imprisoned Mothers:

1.States Parties to the present Charter shall undertake to provide special treatment to expectant mothers and to mothers of infants and young children who have been accused or found guilty of infringing the penal law shall in particular:

2. Ensure that a non custodial sentence will always be first considered when sentencing such mothers;

3. Establish and promote measures alternative to institutional confinement for the treatment of such mothers; and

(d) Ensure that a mother shall not be imprisoned with her child;
The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol)

Article 24: Special Protection of Women in Distress The States Parties undertake to:

b) Ensure the right of pregnant or nursing women or women in detention by providing them with an environment which is suitable to their condition and the right to be treated with dignity.

Provisions of the Childrens' Act 2005 The Gambia

Section 218: Restrictions on Punishment

A child shall not be

1. Ordered to be imprisoned; or

2. Subjected to the death penalty or have the death penalty recorded against him or her

2. A court shall, on sentencing an expectant or a nursing mother, consider the imposition of a non institutional sentence as an alternative measure to imprisonment.

3. Where institutional sentence is mandatory or desirable, an expectant or a nursing mother shall be committed to and be held or detained at an appropriate centre or place designated by the Secretary of State for that purpose.

4. No mother and child shall be held or detained at an appropriate centre in pursuance to subsection (3) for a period longer than the time the child would have attained the age of six years.
5. Where a mother who has completed her nursing period is further given a sentence of imprisonment, the child shall be treated as a child in need of care and protection and may be committed to the care of the person who will ordinarily have custody, or by a committal order to

1.His or her father; or
2.A fit and proper person
The 1997 Constitution of the Republic of The Gambia

Section 29: Right of Children

1.Children shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and subject to legislation enacted in the best interest of children, to know and be cared for by their parents.

In the light of the above provisions we urge you to intervene in this case to protect, promote and respect the rights of this innocent child and his mother, who is performing a biologically required responsibility to protect life.

We would like to call your attention to your commitment to womens' concerns and to protect the child and his mother in her sex specific role as a lactating mother. This is an issue we fervently solicit.

Yours faithfully
The Womens' Rights Movement in The Gambia

Signed on behalf of the Movement

Dr Isatou Touray
Executive Director

IFJ and INSI Join Global Call for Release of Pap Saine and Co

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the International News Safety Institute (INSI) today called for the urgent release of jailed journalists in Gambia, adding their voices to growing global protest at the press freedom crisis in the country after judges jailed six journalists for two years last week because they had supported a statement by the country's press union criticising the government.

"Intolerant government has created a culture of neglect for free speech and human rights," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. "The jailing of journalists simply because they express dissent is a sign of a country betraying the fundamental principles of democracy. These colleagues should be released without delay."

The journalists jailed include three members of the Gambian Press Union, an IFJ affiliate, and two reporters from The Point newspaper and one working for Foroyaa newspaper. According to agency reports, the court in the capital Banjul sentenced them to two years in prison and fines of 250,000 dalasi ($9,700) each, said the source, who was present at the hearing.

Seven were arrested in June after the Gambia Press Union issued a statement critical of the government's treatment of journalists, especially after the killing in 2004 of veteran reporter Deyda Hydara. One of the seven was later released.

"This was a trial that showed the dead hand of political interference in the honest work of journalists," said Rodney Pinder, Director of INSI. "This action, added to the killing that preceded it, underlines the continuing threat to the safety of all news media who are trying to do their jobs, often in circumstances of great danger."

INSI and the IFJ are also calling on democratic governments and world financial organisations to review their development aid to countries like Gambia where journalists work under threat of violence or imprisonment.

The IFJ and INSI said that the decision to prosecute the journalists on charges of seditious publication and criminal defamation for republishing the press union statement was inexplicable and vindictive. It was, they said, an attempt to "intimidate the entire community of Gambian journalists."

The two groups said that there were also urgent humanitarian concerns over the medical condition of one of the journalists, Pap Saine, who needs medical attention for a heart condition and collapsed in court at one stage during the trial.

Press freedom required for good governance"-Hillary Clinton

Reporters Without Borders (http://www.rsf.org)

Press release
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton should stress the need to respect press freedom during her talks with government officials on the seven-nation African tour she has just begun in Kenya, Reporters Without Borders said today.

“We welcome the US secretary of state’s decision to accord Africa a tour of this length,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We share her interest in combating corruption and we would like to stress that this requires defending press freedom. A journalist who exposes kickbacks, fraud or embezzlement in Africa is immediately harassed, arrested or even jailed.”

The press freedom organisation added: “This tour offers the United States a chance to send a strong signal to African leaders by insisting that they pledge to respect basic freedoms. It also offers a chance to send a message of encouragement to their citizens, who are often punished if they dare to express their views freely. It is regrettable that certain countries are not on the programme, such as Gambia, which has the worst press freedom situation in West Africa.”

On the first day of the Nairobi leg of her tour yesterday, Clinton urged African states to combat corruption and crime and to promote “good governance.” Before leaving the Kenyan capital, Reporters Without Borders thinks she should ensure that the authorities are deploying all possible resources to solve the murder of freelance journalist Francis Kainda Nyaruri, whose decapitated body was found in a forest in the southwest of the country on 29 January.

Shortly before his death, Nyaruri said he had been threatened by police officers whose behaviour he had criticised. “Only the arrest of both the perpetrators and instigators will serve to reassure Kenya’s journalists, who have been deeply traumatised by this appalling murder,” Reporters Without Borders said.

While in Nairobi, Clinton is also due to meet Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the president of Somalia’s transitional government, which has been weakened by the Islamist militia Al-Shabaab’s offensive. With 14 journalists killed since the start of 2007, Somalia is the deadliest country in Africa for the media and the US government should encourage the authorities to protect journalists.

While the arbitrary arrests, kidnappings and murders of journalists in Somalia are already extremely worrying, Clinton should bear mind that an Al-Shabaab victory over the government forces would have a dramatic impact on basic freedoms and especially freedom of the press.

After South Africa and Angola, Clinton will have an opportunity in Kinshasa to share her concern with President Joseph Kabila about the impunity enjoyed by those who killed Radio Okapi journalists Serge Maheshe and Didace Namujimbo in Bukavu (the capital of the eastern province of Sud-Kivu).

The trial of those who allegedly gunned down Maheshe on 13 June 2007 was a complete fiasco that has been denounced by many local and international human rights groups. The military court in charge of investigating the murder of Namujimbo, who was shot in the head on 21 November 2008, has yet to hold its first hearing.

Clinton’s talks in Nigeria with President Musa Yar’Adua will undoubtedly touch on the recent deadly clashes between the security forces and Islamist militants in the north of the country as well as Nigeria’s oil-fuelled powerhouse economy. She should also remind him that journalism is a dangerous profession in Nigeria.

Journalists are constantly the victims of street violence, heavy-handed raids and beatings by the police and the State Security Service, and arbitrary arrest by provincial governors, who often abuse their authority. After Gambia, Nigeria is the West African country that shows least respect for press freedom, according to the 2008 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

While on her way from Liberia to Cape Verde, the former First Lady would ideally detour via Banjul in order to tell Gambian President Yahya Jammeh how much his behaviour appals human rights activists and pro-democracy campaigners.

Seven journalists who are leading members of the Gambia Press Union are currently being harassed and prosecuted for criticising Jammeh. At the same time, he has been making provocative and threatening comments about journalists on the state-owned broadcaster GRTS and does not hesitate to throw leading figures in prison as if they were common bandits.

“Firm condemnation of this situation by Washington would have the merit of ending the deafening silence about Gambia’s human rights violations and would reassure the sizable Gambian diaspora in the United States,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“The US intelligence services could also take the opportunity to release the information they have about the circumstances in which Deyda Hydara, the editor of the privately-owned newspaper The Point, was murdered in 2004,” Reporters Without Borders added. In the course of two detailed investigations into Hydara’s murder, the press freedom organisation found evidence indicating that President Jammeh’s security services were involved