Because the Gambia goes to the polls on December 4, 2021, the MFWA’s Senior Programme Officer for Freedom of Expression, Muheeb Saeed, throws mild on the exceptional progress that the nation has made within the freedom of expression area over the previous 5 post-Yahyah Jammeh years.
For his private involvement in, and endorsement of quite a few outrages perpetrated towards journalists, activists and outspoken opponents of his brutal regime, Yahya Jammeh was topped West Africa’s King of Impunity by the MFWA in 2014.
Amongst Jammeh’s star victims was Deyda Hydara, editor of The Level newspaper and outspoken critic, who was shot and killed on December 16, 2004. One other emblematic sufferer was Chief Manneh, a journalist with the Each day Observer newspaper. Manneh was arrested and detained by then Nationwide Intelligence Company (NIA) and ultimately disappeared. Musa Saidykhan, editor-in-chief of the Impartial newspaper, now defunct, was arrested and severely tortured in detention. The three turned the dismal emblems of Jammeh’s brutal crackdown on the media. Threats couldn’t be taken calmly, and so a number of journalists fled the nation after receiving loss of life threats.
President Yahya Jammeh saved the justice system below his thumb and manipulated a largely partisan legislature to enact a raft of repressive laws aimed toward stifling dissent. In 2013, as an illustration, the Nationwide Meeting amended the Prison Code to extend the penalty for “giving false data to public servants” (Part 114). The Jail time period for breaches was elevated from six months to as much as 5 years.
In July 2001 the Gambian Parliament passed the highly-controversial and liberticidal Nationwide Media Fee Act. Amongst different ludicrous provisions, the Act imposed annual licensing on journalists, with the Fee clothed with discretionary powers to resume or refuse functions from journalists and media homes. The Fee was additionally granted the ability to pressure journalists to disclose their sources. Curiously, all these new rules had been to not apply to the government-owned or managed media. Driving the ultimate nail into the press freedom coffin was a provision insulating all selections of the Fee from being contested in court docket.
In a rustic the place the typical wage at present stands at Dalasi 16,000 (about US$310), Parliament in July 2013, handed the Data and Communication (Modification) Act which imposed a high quality of US$74,690 for spreading false information. The legislation was perceived to be aimed toward stifling dissenting opinions and particularly focused at journalists, bloggers, human rights activists and significant residents.
New Daybreak
In December 2016, Jammeh was voted out and compelled into exile, ending 22 years of one in all Africa’s most brutal dictatorships. 4 years after his exit, a brand new period is rising. From the notoriety of being among the many nations with the worst freedom of expression (FOE) surroundings in West Africa, The Gambia is progressively shedding that unenviable picture, and quick establishing itself among the many superstars of the sub-region.
Because the information administration took over, The Gambia has been making spectacular strides on the political and freedom of expression (FOE) fronts which have seen it competing favourably with Ghana and Senegal, two of the area’s shining lights in democracy and press freedom. The Afrobarometer Report 2021 affirms that “An awesome majority of Gambians say the media is actually free to do its work with out authorities interference.”
The Media Basis for West Africa’s (MFWA) monitoring recorded a complete of 5 violations in 2017, a big enchancment over the 13 violations bequeathed by the Jammeh regime in its closing yr. With solely 4 violations, 2019 was the least repressive of the previous 4 years below President Adama Barrow’s stewardship.
The nation in 2018 recorded eight violations, the nation’s worst document since Jammeh’s departure. The entire variety of violations recorded in The Gambia over the previous 4 years, due to this fact involves 25, similar as Senegal’s for that interval, and a lot better than that of Ghana which stands at 79 violations over the identical area of time. Moreover, violations recorded in The Gambia within the three worst years of the Barrow regime – 2017 (5) 2018 (eight) and 2020 (eight) – stand at 21, similar as Ghana’s whole for 2020 alone.
The Gambia ended the primary quarter of 2020 (January-March) with 7 violations and recorded a single violation within the second quarter (April-June, 2020), ultimately rounding up the yr with eight violations, having remarkably gone incident-free throughout the whole second half of the yr.
What’s much more vital, the one violation recorded on June 21, 2020, stood for ten months – that’s till April 19, 2021. In that incident, the police detained Ebou N. Keita, an editor and digital camera operator with the privately-owned Gambian Skills Tv. The journalist was protecting a protest towards COVID-19 restrictions when the safety officers arrested him for filming their operations.
On April 19, 2021, a bunch of jail wardens manhandled Yankuba Jallow of the Foroyaa newspaper at a court docket premises in Banjul after he refused an order to give up his cellphone. He had been accosted for filming a bunch of remand prisoners after court docket proceedings. The ten months’ interval is the longest respite and a exceptional milestone in a rustic the place press freedom violations was a day by day nightmare for journalists in the course of the Jammeh period.
President Adama Barrow’s four-year-old regime is placing The Gambia via efficient press freedom rehabilitation with encouraging outcomes to this point. It’s finishing up reforms to the authorized frameworks to ensure freedom of expression and entry to data. The perspective of presidency officers and safety brokers in direction of the media and public criticism has enormously improved. For instance, following the final incident talked about above, the director of prisons met the aggrieved journalist and rendered an apology. Below Jammeh’s rule, the journalist wouldn’t have dared defy a safety officer’s orders, albeit illegal, to give up his cellphone. Such resistance would have been judged foolhardy and would likely have attracted a number of hefty slaps, kicks and/or detention.
The infamous Nationwide Intelligence Company (NIA), Yahya Jammeh’s pet instrument of repression, has been renamed State Intelligence Service and stripped of its in depth powers of coercion. Moreover, a number of former NIA officers have been arrested and are dealing with trial for his or her roles in human rights abuses, together with press freedom violations, and media homes arbitrarily shut down by the earlier authorities have been reopened.
In June 2018, the Adama Barrow-led authorities paid some compensations to the households of the Ebrimah Manneh and Deyda Hydara, who, along with Musa Saidykhan, turned the symbols of former President Yahya Jammeh’s brutal crackdown on vital journalists. The deal was struck via the mediation of the MFWA and its nationwide accomplice organisation, the Gambia Press Union (GPU), with help from IFEX.
The facilitation function performed by the MFWA and GPU was a part of engagements with the Gambian authorities to help and strengthen the Gambian media sector to contribute successfully to the democratic transition processes within the nation after the autumn of Jammeh.
The MFWA and its accomplice organisation, the Gambia Press Union, are proud to have contributed to the exceptional enchancment in press freedom in The Gambia.
Media Legislation Reforms
On July 1, 2021, Gambia’s Nationwide Meeting accepted the Entry to Data Invoice 2021 in a serious milestone within the nation’s march in direction of real democracy within the post-Yahyah Jammeh period. President Adama Barrow subsequently signed the invoice into legislation in August to provide Gambians, for the primary time within the nation’s historical past, the authorized proper to demand public data. The adoption of the legislation topped 5 years of advocacy and stakeholder engagements and was hailed as a serious enhance for fact-based and investigative journalism.
On Might 9, 2018, the Gambian Supreme Court docket’s declared as unconstitutional the nation’s legislation on legal defamation. The ruling adopted an April 2017 civil swimsuit filed by the MFWA’s nationwide accomplice organisation, Gambia Press Union (GPU). With regard to sedition, the Court docket stated that sedition could possibly be established if the alleged defamatory materials targets the particular person of the complainant. Nevertheless, it stated there isn’t a sedition when the goal is the federal government as an establishment.
The improved press freedom surroundings has inspired the proliferation of personal broadcasters and on-line media shops with media pluralism on full show.
Lingering Issues
Regardless of the huge enchancment, some considerations nonetheless linger. As an example, a constitutional reforms course of has come to unstack with parliament failing to endorse the brand new draft structure. The federal government had initiated the method consistent with its electoral promise to rebuild the foundations for good governance and democracy in The Gambia.
Among the many proposed improvements was a presidential time period restrict with retrospective impact for the incumbent, curbs on the powers of the Govt, a minimal of a bachelor’s diploma for presidential candidates and political inclusion of marginalised teams (together with ladies, youth and folks with disabilities). It’s a large disappointment and a waste of two years of efforts that included broad consultations and loved large help.
A couple of makes an attempt by the federal government to check the heartbeat of the media have ruffled quite a lot of feathers. In March 2019, the authorities launched a brand new safety screening for journalists looking for accreditation to cowl the Presidency. The process, which concerned showing earlier than the State Intelligence Service for scrutiny, was denounced as too intensive and liable to discriminatory use to favour or goal sure journalists and media homes. After a robust backlash, the coverage was withdrawn.
Whereas this incident was interpreted as proof that authorities wouldn’t spare the chance to suppress the media, others pointed to its withdrawal as an indication that the brand new Administration is aware of the media’s considerations.
On January 26, 2020, there was an enormous crackdown on demonstrators who had been demanding the coalition authorities’s departure consistent with its promise in the course of the 2016 election marketing campaign to remain in energy for under three years. The structure supplies for a five-year time period, however the demonstrators had been holding the federal government to its marketing campaign promise, after three years in energy. Safety forces arrested dozens of demonstrators, shut down three radio stations and arrested 4 journalists, together with editors, throwing the nation right into a shock and reviving chilling reminiscences of the Jammeh period.
The Gambia has a small and weak financial system which interprets right into a tiny promoting market. This poses a serious sustainability drawback for the media which has been exhausting hit already by the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are additionally lingering considerations in regards to the media legal guidelines. The Supreme Court docket’s 2018 ruling which decriminalised the spreading of false information on-line, left intact sections of the legal code that penalise related offences with fines and even jail phrases.
The President of the GPU, Sheriff Bojang, fears the federal government can press the buttons of this repressive authorized equipment each time it likes.
“Whereas we have fun the features in The Gambia as far Press freedom is worried, we’re disturbed and nervous that a few of the repressive media legal guidelines utilized by the Yahya Jammeh regime to imprison and hurt journalists are nonetheless present below President Barrow. As we get nearer to the December presidential election, we’re involved that journalists may be focused by the safety forces in addition to political occasion militants,” Bojang instructed the MFWA in a phone interview again in July 2021.
The elections are only a week away and, fortuitously, the campaigns have proceeded easily with the media allowed all of the area to do its work. There have to this point been no incidents of assaults on journalists and no main skilled breaches by the media. The MFWA urges the media to keep up its skilled posture in reporting points and moderating the political debate to teach and inform the citizens.
Regardless of the features made within the press freedom area, there’s nonetheless some work to be accomplished to place The Gambia on a robust democratic footing. We, due to this fact, urge the federal government that may emerge from the December 5, 2021 elections to hold on with the overview of the media authorized framework to get rid of all repressive parts. Specifically, the brand new authorities should expunge the remnants of the Prison Code that prohibit press freedom and freedom of expression in The Gambia. We want the individuals of The Gambia profitable polls and a peaceable final result.
Supply: mfwa.org