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| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Momodou |
Posted - 01 Oct 2024 : 11:26:55
Voice journalist granted bail, ordered to report at Police headquarters today
The Point: Sep 30, 2024
Article By: Momodou Jawo
https://thepoint.gm/africa/gambia/headlines/voice-journalist-granted-bail-ordered-to-report-at-police-headquarters-today
Momodou Justice Darboe, a senior reporter of The Voice newspaper who was questioned by officers of the Gambia Police Force (GPF) and subsequently detained, has been granted bail, The Point has been reliably informed.
Journalist Darboe, who was granted bail of D25,000, was told to report to the police headquarters on Monday at 9:00 a.m.
Both journalist Darboe and his Managing Editor Musa Sheriff are freed on bail.
Darboe was arrested and detained late Thursday evening for an article he authored and published in The Voice newspaper which reports that President Adama Barrow has been working on an exit plan and has chosen businessman Muhammed Jah as his successor. |
| 5 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Momodou |
Posted - 02 Oct 2024 : 14:17:05
Police Charge Voice Newspaper Editor-in-Chief
Foroyaa: October 1, 2024
https://foroyaa.net/police-charge-voice-newspaper-editor-in-chief/
The Spokesperson of the Gambia Police Force, Cadet ASP Modou Musa Sisawo has confirmed to Foroyaa that the Editor-in-Chief of The Voice Newspaper, Musa Sheriff, has been charged with ‘false publication and broadcasting’ on Monday.
Musa Sheriff was charged after reporting to the Police on Monday. He is currently under police custody. He was interrogated last Thursday by the Gambia Police (Sept. 26).
He added the charge proffered against Sherrif came in the wake of a charge brought against Momodou Justice Darboe by the Police.
Momodou Justice Darboe was released on bail on Saturday and asked to report to the police on Monday (today). Darboe is the deputy editor of The Voice
Musa Sheriff and Momodou Justice Darboe were arrested following a story published by Voice Newspaper on September 23rd claiming that President Barrow has chosen a successor as part of an exit plan.
The Gambia Press Union and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have condemned the arrest and called for their release and dropping of the charges against them. |
| Momodou |
Posted - 02 Oct 2024 : 14:09:42
AMNESTY CALLS FOR END TO LAWS USED TO STIFLE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN GAMBIA
The Standard: October 2, 2024
By Omar Bah
https://standard.gm/amnesty-calls-for-end-to-laws-used-to-stifle-freedom-of-expression-in-gambia/
Amnesty International has expressed concern about the continuous use of vague criminal legal provisions to stifle freedom of expression in The Gambia and called on the Gambia government to drop all charges against journalists Musa Sheriff and Momodou Justice Darboe.
The two were arrested for reporting that the president plans to quit, as President Barrow tells UN conference Gambia is a bastion of press freedom.
Momodou Darboe wrote an article published Monday in The Voice newspaper claiming that President Adama Barrow was “working on an exit plan” ahead of the 2026 election.
The article’s headline claimed that Barrow had chosen businessman Muhammed Jah as his “successor”.
Lawyers for the president swiftly threatened legal action against the newspaper, calling the claims “defamatory” and “completely outrageous and untrue.”
Police on Thursday arrested Darboe and the newspaper’s editor, Musa Sheriff.
The two have since been charged with false publication and broadcasting.
The charges stemmed from an article “which allegedly contains misleading information intended to cause public alarm”, the police said.
According to Amnesty “The Gambia Police Force assures the public that freedom of the press is respected but emphasised the importance of responsible journalism in maintaining public order”. |
| Momodou |
Posted - 01 Oct 2024 : 14:38:22
NEPA expresses concern over prosecution of 2 journalists at The Voice
The Standard: October 1, 2024
https://standard.gm/nepa-expresses-concern-over-prosecution-of-2-journalists-at-the-voice/
We the Newspaper Publishers Association are concerned about the fast-developing case of the Publisher and journalist of The Voice, Musa Sheriff and Momodou Justice Darboe, who have been charged with false publication over an article suggesting that President Barrow is planning to quit the stage and had picked Muhammed Jah as successor.
While we respect the interest of the president to protest or show his grievances on whatever he saw wrong in the article, we believe by threatening to sue the paper and the journalists, and the subsequent involvement of the police, have taken the matter unreasonable far.
We believe that as every aggrieved party does about the work of the media,the president could have used the mechanism of the Gambia Media Council, a self-regulatory body which deals with unresolved complaints against the media which has successfully addressed such issues to the satisfaction all parties.
Again, it is our view that discussions about the future of the president or presidency is everyone’s interest and like any other public interest matter, the media should be free to discuss or carry opinions and views on it.
In a democratic country no one should go to jail or be arrested for his or her expression on the affairs of the nation. All what is reasonably required for anyone disagreeing is to present a counter view or facts to prove the other wrong in the same opened media space.
The issue of the charges brings to shaper focus our concerns over the existence of anti- press freedom laws restricting the freedom of expression in our law books. Even though the government has said it has no intention to use these laws against citizens, we now have a case of it being used by no other than the president of the republic.
- Advertisement -
This comes to validate our position that Gambians prefer the abolition of these kinds of laws than to rely on the goodwill or assurance of the government or the president. They include libel as a crime, sedition and false news. They are inimical to democratic dispensation and have the effect of journalists engaging in self-censorship. Their repeal is imperative.
In conclusion we call on the police to drop charges against the two journalists and the government to uphold the principle of the freedom of media at all times. We hasten to say that we are available for any initiative, dialogue or indeed any steps aim at resolving this unfortunate incident amicably. |
| Momodou |
Posted - 01 Oct 2024 : 11:33:05
Momodou Justice Darboe Was Wrongfully Arrested and Detained
By lawyer Lamin J Darbo
He was the boy who would be president and the man who attained that status notwithstanding the improbability of 01 December 2016 and its culmination in presidential ascendancy on 19 January 2017. In the intervening years between boyhood and No. 1 Marina Parade, nothing attendant to the vicissitudes of life was compelling enough to alter the destiny mapped for His Excellency Mr Adama Barrow, President of the Republic of The Gambia (His Excellency).
In that role, and at public expense, he is dined, clothed, pampered to the hilt, and housed in the grandeur of the colonial governors in a publicly owned seaboard home next to the blue Atlantic waters, the golden sands, and the soothing breezes that descend on the official presidential abode
And so he was in New York with an oversize delegation of cabinet colleagues, political hangers on to grace UNGA 2024, seventy nine years from the first General Assembly in London when European colonialism was dying and American and Soviet ascendancy as the global military behemoths was being cemented after the seismic changes occasioned by the Second World War on the principal land theatre of that hubristic conflict. A conflict that sealed the fate of the thousand year Reich and redrew the geographies of global influence.
When that first UNGA was held in January 1946, His Excellency was not a citizen of the world. Eight decades later, he stood at the podium of the majestic Manhattan headquarters of the United Nations in New York City to articulate The Gambia’s panoramic domestic and international world view before the Secretary General, their Majesties, Heads of State and Government, excellences’ one and all. That phenomenal level of personal transformation in the fortunes of a village boy calls for celebration and thanksgiving for the very rare honour bestowed on His Excellency by the people of The Gambia.
Waxing lyrical about his government’s human rights record before the global assemblage of potentates and his domestic audience thanks to the magic of instantaneous communication, His Excellency contended: “At the national level, The Gambia remains steadfast in its commitment to promoting human rights and establishing a vibrant democratic environment. The establishment of a National Human Rights Commission and entrenchment of a free, independent, and impartial judiciary provide a solid framework and a sense of security for our citizens, thus ensuring they have a place to seek redress for injustice. I am happy to report that, since 2017, The Gambia has neither recorded a single political prisoner, nor has any journalist or human rights activist been jailed. Proudly too, in August 2024, The Gambia was recognised as one of Africa’s leading defenders of freedom of expression and ranked third in Article 19’s Global Expression Report 2024. We will continue striving to better our situation”
The above, from His Excellency’s speech (see p. 9), is substantially sound and commendations are due him for abiding by the law in this critical area of speech and human rights. Overall the speech was well written and delivered, and fairly well received by a cross section of Gambians.
As the global jamboree progressed in the city that never sleeps, with His Excellency attending to official commitments, a purely internal nonstory was breaking in the NPP’s 2026 pre-election battlefield. According to The Voice Newspaper, Muhammed Jah, the distinguished Chief Executive Officer of QGroup - to whom Local Government Minister Amat N. K. Bah once said: “Muhammed, if The Gambia should have ten people of your kind then the country would have advanced to another stage” (The Point Newspaper, 08 April, 2024) - was chosen by His Excellency as the NPP’s presidential candidate for 2026. This was a long running rumor but however viewed, it is a mere internal party affair.
Soon after the story was published, there were media reports His Excellency’s legal practitioners contacted The Voice and demanded a prominently positioned retraction and an apology to avoid a claim for “libel” and “defamation” at the High Court.
It appears to elude the lawyers that except for impeachment, their Client is insulated from civil and criminal processes and the logical corollary is that the immunity principle precludes him from initiating legal proceedings against anyone, including The Voice Newspaper. “Except as provided in subsection (2), no civil or criminal proceedings shall be instituted or continued against any person while holding or performing the functions of office of President in respect of anything done or omitted to be done by him or her whether in an official or a private capacity” (see section 69 of the Constitution of The Gambia, 1997)
His Excellency has no authority to strip himself of immunity as that is a sovereignty principle imposed and controlled by the Constitution.
The more egregious aspect of this nonstory is the behavior of The Gambia Police Force (GPF), an institution that chronically resists governing itself in conformity with the rule of law. Under section 4 of the Police Act, “the police shall be employed in The Gambia for the preservation of law and order, the protection of property, the prevention and detection of crime, the apprehension of offenders and the due enforcement of all laws and regulations with which they are charged”.
When I visited Momodou Justice Darboe at the Police Headquarters in Banjul on Friday, the Gambia Press Union Executive and I were given the assurance by a Police Commissioner in his office that he would be released within two hours. He spent Friday night at Police Headquarters and was only released Saturday morning after some 48 hours of unlawful detention.
If anything, this rather confounding matter has no criminal aspect to it and resides compellingly outside the competence of the GPF to even touch. The arrest and detention of Momodou Justice Darboe was unlawful and he should consider instituting a claim for damages against the GPF.
Police officers, especially at the commanding heights, must note they will not be celebrated for merely wearing their attractive uniforms and driving multimillion dalasi Pajeros or Prados under guard. In appropriate cases, they must look the ultimate drivers of public power in the face and say sorry but I cannot arrest or detain anyone on these facts.
Better to take a long view of life and do the right thing especially when the watching public knows that a particular conduct is utterly nonsensical and abusive.
As referenced by His Excellency, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.
If His Excellency can sit at the same table and dine from the sumptuous national buffet with arch former PARTISAN critics under the soothing breezes of the Atlantic massaging their senses and stimulating deep thought on profound national issues, there should be no difficulty accepting the Jah succession question as a matter of legitimate public interest.
I urge His Excellency to ponder the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law…”
I again urge His Excellency to take a lone walk along the serene grounds amidst the flowers and trees of the national house he calls home, to reflect on the rise and fall of the previous tenants-in-chief of that house, to come to terms with his mortality, and the transiency of his office. Let him survey the majesty of the presidency and reflect on the purpose for which he was sent to Number 1 Marina. The monuments we will remember and celebrate him for are not going to be the physical structures he left behind but the unseen symmetric beauty of governance under law.
After all he is our Excellency, our President of the Republic, our Mr Adama Barrow.
The Voice Newspaper, and Momodou Justice Darboe, should be left alone!
This Jah succession issue is a nonstory.
I urge that His Excellency call off his lawyers, and the commanding officers of the GPF.
Lamin J. Darbo |
| Momodou |
Posted - 01 Oct 2024 : 11:27:51
By Mmajiki Saidy-Barrow
Just as they did during the tyranny of Yaya Jammeh, The Gambia Police Force continues to unabashedly present itself as an instrument of abuse! Those of you claiming that “the dictatorship is back,” I say to you that the dictator left, but the dictatorship never left! Cue the abuse of Momodou Darboe!
“Orders from the top,” was an unassailable pretext the police and other security forces used in justifying their abuse against fellow citizens and it remains so today! Like others before him such as Madi Jobarteh, Momodou Sabally, Bora Sisawo and Dr Ismaila Ceesay, what the police are doing to Momodou Darboe is abuse; plain and simple!
It is important to note that when the Gambia Press Union had unrepentant dictator enablers like Seedy Njie and Fatoumatta Jahumpa Ceesay sponsor their last award show, and some of us saw issues with that, GPU leadership as well as some wishy-washy activists took umbrage at our reservations and missed the forest because of the trees! Today, the same GPU is decrying the dictatorship of Yaya Jammeh but they had no qualms wining and dining with lynchpins of that same dictatorship just yesterday!
Someday, Gambians will wake up to the reality that Yaya Jammeh was not the sole culprit or architect of his dictatorship! Until then, please keep cuddling with his unrepentant enablers and condemn Jammeh as if he too doesn’t have people who love him. Until then, keep thinking that everyone else is a saint except Jammeh and his Junglers and see how far your so called transitional justice takes you! |
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