Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists urges you as chairman of the African Union to discuss with your fellow heads of state and government at your summit in the Gambian capital, Banjul, from July 1, the need to defend press freedom on the continent.
New York, June 12, 2006—A court in the Gambia freed a reporter on bail today, more than two months after he was detained by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), local sources told the Committee to Protect Journalists. Lamin Fatty of the Banjul-based The Independent will go on trial June 22 on charges of publishing “false…
New York, June 6, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release of a BBC reporter held without charge by the Gambia’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA), but is alarmed by the continued detention of two other journalists. Lamin Cham was freed on Friday, sources told CPJ. He was arrested May 30 and held incommunicado as…
New York, June 1, 2006—Gambian security officers arrested a local journalist working for the BBC on Tuesday, a local source told the Committee to Protect Journalists. A BBC source in London confirmed that Lamin Cham had been detained. His whereabouts are unknown. His arrest comes amid a government crackdown on a critical U.S.-hosted Web site,…
New York, May 30, 2006—At least three local journalists were detained by the Gambia’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA) on Friday as part of a growing crackdown on the U.S.-based news site Freedom Newspaper, local sources told the Committee to Protect Journalists. The three were arrested after their names and addresses appeared on a list of…
New York, May 26, 2006—Police in the Gambia on Monday summoned contributors and sources for the U.S.-based Web site Freedom Newspaper(http://www.freedomnewspaper.com). Local sources told the Committee to Protect Journalists today that at least one local journalist was detained in connection with the summonses, and that others may have been picked up by security forces. Calls…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by the deterioration of press freedom in the Gambia. Authorities in your country have held a journalist without any official explanation since April 10 and have prevented his newspaper, The Independent, from operating for more than seven weeks.