Gambia: Fear rules: summary report

Summary AI Index: AFR 27/004/2008 “People do whatever they can to avoid getting arrested because once you are arrested you are out of the protection of the law and are subject to all kinds of human rights violations from the police, the army, and the National Intelligence Agency.” Human rights defender In the 14 years that President Yahya Jammeh has been in power, there have been six foiled coup a [...] Three days after the most recent coup attempt in March 2006, the President declared on national radio and television that “any attempt to unconstitutionally overthrow the government would be crushed without mercy” and that he would “set an example that would put an end to the treachery and sabotage”. [...] The media, for the most part, censors itself in the face of arrests, fines, threats and physical attacks that have been meted out to those accused of criticizing the government. [...] On 27 March 2006 all the staff of The Independent newspaper were arrested and the newspaper was closed down. [...] In November 2007 the Media Foundation for West Africa filed a second lawsuit at the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice against the Gambian government, over the illegal detention and torture of Musa Saidykhan in March 2006.