His Excellency Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh
President of The Gambia
Banjul
The Republic of The Gambia

Vienna, 3 August 1999

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors and media executives, strongly condemns the arrest of three journalists in The Gambia.

IPI is informed that Baba Galeh Jallow, editor-in-chief of the new bi-weekly newspaper, The Independent, and Yorro Jallow, the paper’s managing editor and vice president of the Gambia Press Union, were arrested by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) on Sunday, 1 August 1999. A reporter, N.B. Daffeh, was arrested on Friday, 30 July. We understand that the government has made no comments on the arrests.

The Independent was launched on 5 July and planned to put out two issues a week, on Mondays and Fridays. It was closed by the government on 23 July – allegedly because it had failed to pay a business registration fee at the Income Tax Department – shortly after it had published a statement by the opposition United Democratic Party that described the president as the “richest person in the region” and the “most corrupt head of state in Africa”.

IPI considers the suspension of The Independent and the arrest of three of its journalists to be only the latest in a series of attempts by the Gambian government to muzzle the country’s independent press. Since you were elected president in the September 1996 elections, many journalists have been censored, threatened or harassed for their critical coverage of the state, while licence fees for private radio stations and newspapers have been more than doubled in an attempt to financially cripple the independent media.

We urge Your Excellency to ensure that the three journalists are released immediately and unconditionally and that The Independent is allowed to resume publication. We further urge you to ensure that The Gambia’s independent journalists are allowed to carry out their profession without further harassment.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director
UPDATE:

On Tuesday, 3 August, the three Gambian journalists were released by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), but were told to report to the Agency with the necessary documents pertaining to the registration of the newspaper. The newspaper maintains that it has already fulfilled all the legal requirements for registration.