“Ain’t no such thing as Press freedom in Gambia”
(Reporters sans Frontières-AllAfrica.com) As the campaign for the 22 September presidential election got under way today in Gambia, Reporters Without Borders said repeated attacks on the press and free expression meant the polling would be neither free nor fair.
“On the one hand, you have journalists with their hands tied because they fear the intelligence services,” the organisation said. “On the other, you have a government that controls the public media and cracks down hard on the independent media, despite the laws and treaties it has signed. This is why we already know these elections will not be fair.”
Reporters Without Borders added: “There is no need to cite the persecution of opposition party members. The situation of press freedom and public access to information is so catastrophic that it alone suffices to disqualify these elections. There is no way the international community will be able to say that the 22 September elections were democratic.”
Gambia’s privately-owned media have been hit hard during President Yahya Jammeh’s two terms and are now in the grip of fear. Death threats, surveillance, nighttime arrests, arbitrary detention and mistreatment constitute the daily lot of journalists who do not sing the government’s praises. (more…)
