The Media-for-Democracy in Nigeria group (MFD), comprising MediaRights Agenda (MRA), Journalists for Democratic Rights (JODER),Independent Journalism Centre (IJC) and the International Press Centre(IPC), hereby decry the jailing of six Gambian journalists on August6, 2009.
The affected journalists including three officials of the Gambia PressUnion (GPU), Sarata Jabbi Dibba (Vice President); Emil Touray(Secretary General) and Pa Modou Faal (Treasurer); as well as The Point Newspaper’s Pap Saine (Publisher); Ebou Sawaneh (Editor) and SamSarr, Editor of Foroyaa newspaper were all sentenced to a two-year jail term and fined USD 10,000 each for alleged sedition anddefamation by a High Court.
The MFD calls on Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua to show leadershipas the Chair of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)by intervening in the matter to secure a reversal of this unwholesomejudgment particularly in the light of the fact that a Nigerian judgehas been used to perpetrate this travesty of justice. We call on West African, African and international human and civilrights movements not to spare any effort towards ensuring that theunwelcome judgment is reversed as it constitutes unacceptable affronton press freedom in the country.
We surely cannot keep silent in theface of this grave injustice and assault on the union and journalisticrights of the jailed colleagues.
It is indeed worrisome and certainly provocative that the allegedsedition and defamation arose from the jailed journalists’ persistentdemand on Gambian President Yahya Jammeh to account for the gunning todeath of Deyda Hydara on December 16, 2004.
The killers of Hydara, former Publisher of The Point and well knowncritic of President Jammeh’s government, are yet to be apprehendedfive years on. The MFD demands the unconditional release of the six journalists.President Jammeh should realize that neither their imprisonment norother forms of assault on the media in the Gambia will stop theinternational media community from demanding that his governmentaccounts for the killing of Hydara by finding the killers.
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