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Momodou
Denmark
11835 Posts |
 Posted - 30 Mar 2007 : 16:36:32
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Reporters Without Borders
Press release
30 March 2007
GAMBIA
Intelligence agents arrest journalist and opposition activist as she gets off plane
Reporters Without Borders called today for the release of freelance journalist and pro-democracy activist Fatou Jaw Manneh, who was arrested by the National Intelligence Agency on 28 March on her arrival at Banjul international airport.
“No warrants or court appearances, a disregard for legality and a complete lack of transparency – these are the hallmarks of the NIA, the president’s iron fist,” the press freedom organisation said.
“Opposition to President Yahya Jammeh or the expression of dissident views has become a high-risk undertaking that can catapult anyone, especially journalists, into the lawless world of Gambia’s prisons.”
A resident of the United States for the past 10 years, Manneh was arrested as she disembarked from a flight from the Senegalese capital of Dakar with the intention of visiting her family. NIA officers arrested her after her presence was reported by a passenger. She was taken to NIA headquarters on Marina Parade, on the Banjul seafront.
She has not been charged and the reasons for her arrest are not known.
A former reporter with the privately-owned Daily Observer, Manneh is well known for her pro-democracy activism. She writes for several websites and the “Save The Gambia Democracy Project,” an opposition movement.
In 2003, she wrote an article for The Independent (a daily newspaper that has been illegally closed by the authorities) that led to its editor, Abdoulie Sey, being illegally detained for three days.
Headlined “Jammeh Under The Microscope,” it referred to Gambia’s endemic poverty and corruption and said Jammeh had “failed us all.”
Reporters Without Borders also reiterates its call for the immediate release of Daily Observer journalist “Chief” Ebrima Manneh, who went missing on 7 July. The opposition tri-weekly Foroyaa revealed in January that he was being held without trial at the police station of Fatoto, a small town 400 km east of the capital.
He was arrested for an unknown reason shortly after the African Union summit that was held in Banjul on 1-2 July. The independent press was accused of trying to spoil the summit and several of its journalists were arrested at the time.
Leonard VINCENT
Bureau Afrique / Africa desk
Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders
5, rue Geoffroy-Marie
75009 Paris, France
Tel : (33) 1 44 83 84 76
Fax : (33) 1 45 23 11 51
Email : afrique@rsf.org / africa@rsf.org
Web : www.rsf.org
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