H. E. Yahya Jammeh
President and Commander-in-Chief
of the Armed Forces
Banjul
The Gambia

Vienna, 9 February 1998

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI) strongly condemns the detention of Boubacar Gaye and Ebrima Sillah, the proprietor and news editor respectively of Citizen FM, and the forced closure of the radio station.

We are informed that Gaye and Sillah were arrested by members of the National Intelligence Army (NIA) on Thursday, 5 February 1998 and brought to NIA headquarters for questioning . On Friday, 6 February, NIA officials and more than a dozen armed soldiers sealed off the station and ordered all staff members to leave the premises.

The detention of Gaye and Sillah came shortly after a story was broadcast in Citizen FM claiming that the NIA’s Director of Operations had been sacked in connection with an alleged counterfeit scandal. We understand that the Ministry of Information, in consultation with the Ministry of Justice, issued an official statement justifying the closure of the station on the grounds that the broadcasting of rumours about a staff shake-up at the NIA was “irresponsible” and “deceptive” on the part of the two journalists, and that it violated national security interests as well as the conditions under which radio and newspaper licenses are issued.

IPI, the global network of editors and media executives from newspapers, magazines, broadcasting organisations and news agencies in over 100 countries, believes that the continued detention of Gaye and Sillah, and the closure of Citizen FM, is a violation of everyone’s right to seek, receive and impart information, as guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We therefore strongly urge Your Excellency to ensure that the two journalists are released immediately and unconditionally, and that Citizen FM is allowed to resume broadcasting.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director