The Media-for-Democracy in Nigeria group (MFD), comprising Media Rights Agenda (MRA), Journalists for Democratic Rights (JODER), Independent Journalism Centre (IJC) and the International Press Centre (IPC), hereby decries the jailing of six Gambia journalists on August 6, 2009.
The affected journalists including three officials of the Gambia Press Union (GPU), Sarata Jabbi Dibba (Vice President); Emil Touray (Secretary General) and Pa Modou Fall (Treasurer); as well as The Point Newspaper's Pap Saine (Publisher); Ebou Sawaneh (Editor) and Sam Sarr, Editor of Foroyaa newspaper were all sentenced to a two year jail term and fined USD10,000 each for alleged sedition and defamation by a High Court.
The MFD calls on Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua to show leadership as the Chair of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) by intervening in the matter to secure a reversal of this unwholesome judgment particularly in the light of the fact that a Nigerian judge has been used to perpetrate this travesty of justice.
We call on West African, African and international human and civil rights movements not to spare any effort towards ensuring that the unwelcome jdugment is reversed as it constitutes unacceptable affront on press freedom in the country. We surely cannot keep silent in the face of this grave injustice and assault on the union and journalistic rights of the jailed colleagues.
It is indeed worrisome and certainly provocative that the alleged sedition and defamation arose from the jailed journalists' persistent demand on Gambian President Yahya Jammeh to account for the gunning to death of Deyda Hydara on December 16, 2004. The killers of Hydra, former publisher of the Point and well-known critic of President Jammeh's government, are yet to be apprehended five years on. The MFD demands the unconditional release of the six journalists.
President Jammeh should realise that neither their imprisonment nor other forms of assault on the media in the Gambia will stop the international media community from demanding that his government accounts for the killing of Hydara by finding the killers.
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