Gambia

2010

  
Deyda Hydara Trust

Deyda Hydara, a friend and colleague murdered in impunity

I can still vividly recall how the news of Deyda Hydara’s killing was relayed to me on the morning of December 17, 2004, after I returned from a trip to Zambia the previous night. Very early that morning, I called his childhood friend and partner at The Point, Pap Saine, who told me: “They shot…

Read More ›

ECOWAS court orders Gambia to pay tortured journalist

New York, December 17, 2010–Musa Saidykhan, who was detained for three weeks in 2006 by Gambian state security agents, was tortured and must receive compensation, a West African regional court ruled on Thursday.

Read More ›

Iran, China drive prison tally to 14-year high

Relying heavily on vague antistate charges, authorities jail 145 journalists worldwide. Eritrea, Burma, and Uzbekistan are also among the worst jailers of the press. A CPJ special report

Read More ›

Jammeh may be a Nebraska "admiral," but he was not commended by Obama. (Reuters)

Jammeh ‘award’ coverage reflects chill in Gambian press

“President Jammeh bags 4 awards,” trumpeted a September 17 headline of the Daily Observer, a pro-government newspaper in the Gambia, a West African nation whose idyllic façade as “the smiling coast of Africa” is maintained in part by President Yahyah Jammeh’s brutal repression of the independent press. 

Read More ›

On Gambia’s Freedom Day, CPJ joins call for human rights

Thursday was Freedom Day in the Gambia, an annual holiday unique to the West African nation marking President Yahyah Jammeh’s seizure of power in a 1994 coup. As the president used the occasion to declare a crusade against drugs and corruption, his rhetoric was undercut by the repression of the independent press under his administration.

Read More ›

A billboard for a tourism conference in Gambia. (CPJ)

Gambia’s ‘Smiling Coast’ hides local media’s grimace

Who would not like to enjoy luxurious beach resorts and quaint fishing villages on the “Smiling Coast of Africa”? This is the pitch that the Gambian government made to participants of an international tourism conference last week. In fact, behind the idyllic facade of a tropical paradise wedged on Africa’s western Atlantic coast is the…

Read More ›

Ten Journalist Murder Cases to Solve

CPJ challenges authorities in 10 nations to bring justice and reverse culture of impunity New York, April 29, 2010—In the Philippines, political clan members slaughter more than 30 news media workers and dump their bodies in mass graves. In Sri Lanka, a prominent editor who has criticized authorities is so sure of retaliation that he…

Read More ›

Audio Report: Ten Murder Cases to Solve

In our special report, “Ten Journalist Murder Cases to Solve,” CPJ challenges authorities to solve these news media slayings and reverse the culture of impunity. Here, CPJ’s Robert Mahoney explains why each of these cases can be solved if governments demonstrate political will. Listen to the mp3 on the player above, or right click here to…

Read More ›

Gambia Press Union

Durbin, Senate colleagues press for Manneh’s release

For more than two years, U.S. Sen. Richard J. Durbin and a group of Senate colleagues have been pressing for the release of Gambian journalist “Chief” Ebrima Manneh, left. In July 2006, security agents arrested Manneh at his workplace at the Daily Observer and have since held him incommunicado and without charge. On Thursday, Durbin…

Read More ›

Al-Shabaab militants patrol Mogadishu's Bakara Market, home to several media outlets. (Reuters/Feisal Omar)

In African hot spots, journalists forced into exile

By Tom Rhodes High numbers of local journalists have fled several African countries in recent years after being assaulted, threatened, or imprisoned, leaving a deep void in professional reporting. The starkest examples are in the Horn of Africa nations of Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, where dozens of journalists have been forced into exile. Zimbabwe, Rwanda,…

Read More ›

2010