XALIMASN.COM
By Frederic Tendeng
As the International Community celebrates this Monday the World Press Freedom Day, the French based global media watchdog, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), joins the list of Human Rights organizations indicting Gambian authorities for entertaining a gloomy and unhealthy press environment.
RSF’s annual global report on press freedom ranks Gambia 137th and comes neck and neck with Mexico in a list of 175 countries monitored by the Organization. Sadly enough, The Gambia’s poorest press freedom record appears to have worsened where countries like Guinea-Bissau and Zimbabwe did better. Zimbabwe ranks 136th, coming right before the Gambia. Concurrently to its press freedom index, RSF has also released a list of heads of state, personalities and militias branded “2010 predators of freedom in Africa”. Again, Gambia’s President Yahya AJJ Jammeh is well enlisted besides people like Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali (Tunisia), Mouammar Kadhafi (Lybia), Issaias Afeworki (Érythrea), Somalian armed militias, Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), King Mswati III (Swaziland), Teodoro Obiang Nguema (Équatorial Ginea), Ogbonna Onovo, inspector general of police, (Nigeria). RSF’s report specifically highlights the fact that “despite the existence of a civilian government, headed by a young president, Yahya Jammeh, The Gambia is the reserve of a small clique of frequently irrational soldiers, who imprison torture and terrorizes often randomly, those who dare to clash with the head of state or his friends”.
Like previously mentioned by other Organizations, RSF’s report notes that “the murder of the country’s [Gambia] most prominent journalist, editor of the daily The Point, Deyda Hydara, on 16 December 2004, marked the end of a period when a well organized and rigorous private press could still stand firm against a government which did not hide its hostility towards it. Hydara was formerly president of the journalists’ union, correspondent for RSF and AFP, doyen of the country’s journalists and a perceptive editorialist, pointing out the erring ways of the inexperienced and mystic young president” the report says. “At the time he was killed, within a stone’s throw of a police barracks, Hydara was being permanently watched by the dreaded National Intelligence Agency (NIA), the head of state’s all-powerful intelligence service. Since his death, almost all those who were a thorn in the president’s side have fallen into step or have left the country. Apart from The Point, which is more or less protected by the aura of its deceased editor, most newspapers that tried to get a different voice heard from that of the pro-government Daily Observer have been illegally closed” RSF explains. The unresolved fate of Chief Manneh has also been mentioned by RSF. “One imprisoned journalist, “Chief” Ebrima Manneh, disappeared without trace from the sinister Mile Two prison on the Banjul sea front. The authorities have always denied holding him, despite numerous reports from prisoners and eye witnesses to the contrary”.
Meanwhile, RSF’s Africa Head, Peter Ambrose, has observed that “despite positive examples such as Mali, Ghana and Namibia, freedom of the press has generally declined over the continent”. According to him, the situation has worsened in the Horn of Africa. “In Eritrea, some thirty journalists were arrested in 2009 against fifteen in 2008,” said Peter Ambrose adding that the country comes last (175th) in RSF press freedom index.
