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MFWA and NAFEO
launch campaign on The Gambia
MAY 23, 2007, ACCRA, GHANA:
The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and the Network
of African Freedom of Expression Organizations (NAFEO) launched on May
21, 2007 in Accra a campaign for an end to the impunity and violent
attacks on media freedoms and freedom of expression generally in the
Gambia by the government of President Yahya Jammeh.
The campaign also demanded the release of Chief Ebrima Manneh, a
journalist arrested without charge or trial by the political police, the
National Intelligence Agency (NIA), since July 2006 but whose
whereabouts the government and its security deny knowledge of.
A statement by
Prof. Kwame
Karikari, Executive Director of MFWA said the
campaign plans to target African leaders, African and international
human rights organizations, the UN human rights agencies, and
governments that have relations with The Gambia, to put pressure on the
government of President Jammeh to end his violent repression of free
expression.
As part of the campaign a
dossier of press freedom violations by the government since President
Jammeh came to power in 1994 has been published and is being distributed
as documentary evidence of the violations of free expression.
The 63-page booklet catalogues arrests,
detentions and repressive media laws. It also includes record of media
houses that have been closed down, journalists forced into exile, and
media houses attacked by arson. It also includes the uninvestigated
murder of prominent editor Deyda Hydara in 2005.
The campaign aims at exposing human
rights violations in The Gambia, particularly freedom of expression and
media rights, which are little known to Africans and the international
community.
The MFWA also plans to send a formal
presentation of the campaign to the African Union Chairman, Ghana ’s
President John Agyekum Kufuor, to intervene and demand President Jammeh
to free Chief Manneh, and respect freedom of expression.
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