The Gambia ALERT: Lawyer jailed for defending his client

Moses Richards, a Gambian lawyer, was on September 19, 2011 sentenced to a total of two years six months imprisonment in connection with his work of representing a client.

Media Foundation for West Africa’s (MFWA) sources reported that the Banjul Magistrate’s Court found Richards, a former High Court judge, guilty of sedition and handed him a two-year jail term.  He was sentenced to a further six months for supposedly giving false information to the office of President Yahya Jammeh.

Both sentences are running concurrently.

The charges against Richards stemmed from a letter he wrote on behalf of Pa Ebrima Colley, his client, to the Sheriff of the Banjul High Court. The letter reportedly mentioned the office of President Yahya Jammeh, as ordering the sheriff for a stay of judgement in a land dispute between two families in a village in the western part of The Gambia.

Richards, during his defence, maintained that he did not write anything that was contemptuous of President; neither did he give false information to the Sheriff.

Richards who was decorated with national honours, was on January 31, 2010 remanded in prison custody after he was arraigned before court to answer two criminal charges.

In a release, The Gambia Bar Association (GBA) said: “It is a universally accepted principle of all civilized societies that an advocate must be allowed to represent his or her client without fear or favour” and that Richards is being punished for discharging “his duties as a lawyer and while under the direct instruction of his client”.

“Richard’s client [Colley] appeared in court and swore under oath that he did indeed instruct Richards to write the said letter. These are the ‘crimes’ for which Richards is being punished,” the statement emphasized.

“Once again, The Gambia is portrayed as a nation where the mere mention of the Office of the President is risky. The Gambia Bar Association urges the executive branch of the government to take note,” the GBA added.

MFWA is appalled at the misuse of these sedition laws. We demand the repeal of sedition laws which are being used to suppress the voice of Gambians.

Richard’s sentence is not legitimate.

MFWA strongly condemns this act. The sentence must be revoked and the charges against him must be dropped immediately. 

For more information please contact:

Kwame Karikari (Prof)

Executive Director

MFWA

Accra

Tel: 233-30-22 4 24 70

Fax: 233-302-22 10 84

Email: mfwa@africaonline.com.gh, alerts@mediafound.org

Website: www.mediafound.org

Gambia VP touts tourism, downplays human rights issues

By Mohamed Keita/CPJ Africa Advocacy Coordinator

Gambian Vice-President Isatou Njie-Saidy (AFP)

The Gambia has an image problem: Dubbed the "Smiling Coast of Africa," it is a tourist destination, but its government has one of the region's worst records of human rights abuses. On Tuesday, at an African tourism promotion event in New York City, Gambian Vice-President Isatou Njie-Saidy headed a delegation working toward improving the negative perceptions of the country.

In a discussion with Njie-Saidy after the event, I mentioned to her that an Internet search of the Gambia yields many results about its human right abuses. In response, she shifted the topic to the United States: "Do they tell you about Guantánamo Bay? Seems like a human rights issue," she said. "And, you know, in the Internet, you have a lot of garbage. ... Don't believe everything you read: You have to look in between." She later accused social media of peddling untruths: "Social media is the problem," she said.

Accordingly, I brought up to the vice-president the well-documented case of a journalist whose detention in government custody for more than five years has left his family, friends, and colleagues in anguish. The case of Ebrimah "Chief" Manneh, a reporter whose whereabouts, legal status, and health have been unknown since Gambian state security agents arrested him in 2006 at his office at the pro-government Daily Observer, was not unfamiliar to the vice-president. In fact, six U.S. senators, UNESCO, and a West African human rights court have called on the Gambia to end its illegal detention of the journalist.

Despite this, the vice-president told me, "The government didn't arrest him. At the same time, people make up stories. Who knows what happened to Manneh? We don't know--I cannot answer, because I don't know." She then suggested that the journalist may have gone missing while attempting to immigrate to Europe. "There are people who die in the desert--anything can happen to anybody," she said.

Njie-Saidy's government has deprived Manneh of his freedom and, more recently,referred to the journalist's death. Still, the vice-president denied any responsibility in accounting for his fate. "That incident, as far I know--I don't know anything about it," she told me. 

CPJ's Dario Reais contributed to this story.

Mohamed Keita is advocacy coordinator for CPJ's Africa Program. He regularly gives interviews in French and English to international news media on press freedom issues in Africa and has participated in several panels. Follow him on Twitter: @africamedia_CPJ.


Souce:cpj.org

Gambia: Press Release from The Gambia Bar Assosiation

This Monday, the 19^th day September 2011 at approximately 11 am at the Banjul Magistrates Court, Moses B. J Richards, a legal practitioner was convicted and sentenced to serve a term of 2 years with hard labour at Mile II Central State Prisons. The alleged crimes for which he was convicted were giving false information to a public servant contrary to section 114(a) of the Criminal Code and sedition contrary to Section 52(1)(a) of the Criminal Code.

The prosecution, conviction and sentencing was presided over and carried out by Magistrate T. A. Alagbe.

By this appalling act the Gambia Bar Association considers the whole Gambian legal profession and the rule of law to have been tried and convicted by extension.

The Gambia Bar Association unreservedly condemns the judgment delivered by Mr. Alagbe and considers it to be an assault on the independence of the profession as well as a malicious attack on the independence of the bar.

It is a universally accepted principle of all civilized societies that an advocate must be allowed to represent his or her client without fear or favour. In this instance the charges against Mr. Richards related to a letter he had written to the Sheriff of the High Court in the course of his duties as a lawyer and while under the direct instruction of his client. The letter made reference to the executive branch of the government. Mr. Richard’s client appeared in court and swore under oath that he did indeed instruct Mr. Richards to write the said letter. These are the ‘crimes’ for which Mr. Richards is being punished.

Once again The Gambia is portrayed as a nation where the mere mention of the Office of the President is risky. The Gambia Bar Association urges the executive branch of the government to take note while its name is used to drive a wedge between the State and the people.

This judgment is a violation of all known principles that seek to protect and safeguard the integrity of the profession as well as uphold the human rights and dignity of the citizen. This judgment sets a dangerous precedent that will once more smear the international reputation of The Gambia and yet again further weaken the already failing Gambian legal system.

The Gambia Bar Association calls on the Executive branch of Government to pay heed to the Legal sector that has recently taken a severe bludgeoning by the forces of corruption and incompetence. There is no doubt that such a judgment would not have been delivered in any other regional Commonwealth nation especially Nigeria, the native land of Mr. Alagbe.

The Gambia Bar Association decries this latest battering of the constitution and the rights of all citizens. We call on the Government of the Gambia to step in and protect its citizens … we call on the government of The Gambia to intervene in the public degradation of the constitution…. we call on the government of the Gambia to free Moses Richards!

The Gambia Bar Association will no longer stand by while these atrocities are carried out in our country against our people by those who would not dare act in such a manner in their country of origin. The bar hereby puts all relevant authorities on notice that the Gambia Bar Association will actively seek the institution of disciplinary action against Mr. Alagbe in Nigeria and will do the same to all other foreign lawyers that seek to visit terror and humiliation on Gambians.

We once more openly invite the executive to dialogue for the interest of all our brothers and sisters.


Source:Freedomnewspaper.com

Gambia on the Road to Political Limbo

By D.A Jawo

As Gambians gear up for the presidential elections in November, and the National Assembly elections, less than two months later, we have seen President Jammeh intensify his socalled philanthropic gestures, including dishing out tractors to various individuals and farming communities as well as flooding the country with sugar and other food items for the Ramadan, virtually putting traders in those commodities out of business.   It is obvious to anyone who cares for the truth that President Jammeh has neither the money nor the wherewithal to provide all those tractors, for instance, on his own. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that they were either bought from state resources or a grant from Taiwan for the Gambian people. Yet, Gambians were deliberately given the impression that they were being provided by President Jammeh out of his magnanimity, no doubt as part of his election campaign.   President Jammeh and his APRC can therefore be accused of using state resources to campaign for re-election, including a complete monopoly of the public media, which belongs to all Gambians, regardless of political affiliation. We also recently saw him campaigning in the guise of ‘Dialogue with the People’ tour, which is sponsored and paid for by the Gambian tax payers.   However, this is despite him telling Gambians that he was not going to campaign, even though his every action, including making numerous promises during the tour as well as dishing out those tractors, bags of sugar, cash and other material gifts, as well as virtually all his utterances and other actions, tantamount to campaigning.   However, while President Jammeh is busy campaigning in various guises, there is hardly much happening in the opposition camp. While we have recently seen some sabre rattling between the leadership of the UDP and PDOIS about the possibility of forming a strategic alliance for the elections, but there has not yet been any serious attempt so far to make such alliance between the only two active opposition parties left in the ring to challenge the APRC; with all the others either hibernating or, like NDAM and NCP, having completely been submerged into the APRC, a reality.   Therefore, with the present division within the opposition, President Jammeh can confidently say that he does not need to campaign in order to win the next elections with a ‘landslide’. This is because his opponents are yet to indicate that they are ready to put up any formidable challenge to the APRC hegemony during the elections or at any time.   Of course it is a well-known fact that the APRC is not as popular and homogeneous as its apologists would want us to believe, and there is no way that the party can win a free and fair election in this country, but the facts are quite glaring that free and fair elections cannot obtain under the present political dispensation. We have all witnessed the persistent repression of the media and the opposition, including the ridiculous imprisonment of the UDP campaign manager Femi Peters for one year for merely organizing a UDP rally without a police permit, which the APRC does on a daily basis, and yet no policeman would dare to confront them.   We have also seen how President Jammeh has been going around during his recent country-wide tour threatening not to bring government projects to those areas that vote against him, as if the money for those projects comes from his pocket and not the Gambian tax payers’ money, which of course includes the opposition.   This is in addition to the unfair use of the public media by President Jammeh and the APRC at the expense of all other Gambians, including the opposition, who all have an equal stake in them. It is indeed a shame to see the Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS), for instance, being transformed into the propaganda organ of the APRC. It is therefore a big joke for anyone to call such a situation ideal in a democracy when only one political party has access to the media and everyone else is denied such access.   Despite the large turn-out during the recent general voter registration exercise, which produced an unprecedented figure of over 800, 000 registered voters out of a population of less than 1.5 million, what is likely to happen during the elections is that the voter turn-out would again be much lower than in the last elections in 2006 when just about 50 per cent actually turned out to vote. Therefore, unless the opposition get their act together and convince Gambians of the need to come out and vote, only those very few Gambians who support President Jammeh, together with those numerous non-Gambians who have been registered to vote in the country, as well as those induced by money and other material gifts and promises, would come out to vote, while the vast majority of the people would stay at home, for lack of a credible alternative, no doubt as a result of the failure of the opposition to come out with a credible strategy to confront the APRC.   Indeed, we are all aware that virtually all those who do not come out to vote are actually opposed to the regime, but because of the failure of the opposition to form a strategic alliance, most of those people see no point in coming out to vote unless there is a formidable opposition strategy to dislodge President Jammeh.   Of course President Jammeh and his praise singers are always quite happy with such a scenario and in fact that is no doubt why he goes about saying that neither elections nor a coup d’etat would remove him from power. It is all part of his psychological onslaught on the psychic of Gambians, with the intention of being seen as an invincible super-human who is several rungs above ordinary mortals.   What is therefore likely to happen is that at the end of the day, President Jammeh will again be re-elected with a ‘landslide’ victory, which he and his praise singers will attribute to his popularity and magnanimity, completely disregarding the unlevelled political playing field that his opponents have been operating in. He will be sworn in for a fourth term as president of this country with pomp and gaiety and the present system will not only continue, but The Gambia’s reputation will continue to slide downwards and the ship of state will get stuck deeper and deeper into the mud.   With this trend, The Gambia will continue to become more and more an international pariah state as well as attract scum and laughter within the sub-region.   

Source:dailynews.gm