By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor–in-Chief
Following her arrest at The Banjul International Airport and subsequent detention by the notorious National Intelligence Agency (NIA), US based Gambian journalist Fatou Jaw Manneh has been charged with interalia: "Insulting Dr. President Yahya Abdul Azziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh;
Defamation of character and peddling false information to potentially undermine the Alliance for Patriotic Reconstruction regime of President Yahya Jammeh." Although the details are being worked out, The Gambia Echo has been reliably told by phenomenally competent sources that Fatou Jaw Manneh will be arraigned but when and where is not known for now.
Thus far, close relatives like Fatou’s brother based in the UK, a Bubacarr Manneh and a family friend one Dr. Manneh had access to Fatou and have since secured the services of Defence Attorney Modou Lamin Jobarteh. Despite the intervention of lawyer Jobarteh laments our source, the NIA insists that Fatou cannot be granted bail because her continuous detention depends on President Yahya Jammeh. Fatou according to our credible sources remains strong and unremorseful for all that they alleged she did.
Says a concerned family source, Monday would be the 40-day sacrificial ceremony of Fatou’s father’s death and we had anticipated that that she would be granted bail and observe this solemn service. It is customary in Islam that women observe the death of their husbands’ for a 40-day mourning period and Fatou had gone to The Gambia to attend her mom’s graduation from that solemn ritual. Lawyer Jobarteh will be at the NIA Saturday morning to try and see if his client will be granted bail as provided by the Gambian Constitution.
Observes a legal luminary closely monitoring the case; “even drug barons, blood diamond operatives and murderers are granted bail in The Gambia, so how come she cannot be granted the same right for allegedly insulting President Jammeh?” According to the Gambian Constitution argues the legal mind, Ms. Manneh’s alleged offences are all bail able and detaining her for over 72 hours is in itself, unconstitutional.
Argues another source, “frankly speaking the charges against Ms. Manneh are not only malicious but also bogus. The charge of false information is a colonial law that the British used against African journalists who were clamoring for greater representation and the unfairness of colonialism's excessive rule”.
Evidently, what we have seen in Jammeh’s Gambia is a returned to the old order where critics are illegally detained and then have bogus charges preferred against them with the sole purpose of humiliating them and in so doing, gag press freedom.
Since we broke news of Fatou Jaw Manneh’s arrest Thursday morning, our Echo mailbag has been inundated with a barrage of essays and sentiments majority of them are a withering indictment of the monstrous regime of President Yahya Jammeh and his repressive NIA. The latest in that category is from Gambian academic Professor Abdoulaye Saine of the Miami University in Oxford, Ohio addressed to the US Ambassador in The Gambia His Excellency Joseph D. Stafford. Professor Saine a close observer and prolific critic-cum-commentator on the regime echoes the fears of all concerned when he told Ambassador Stafford in pertinent part: “Gambians in the Diaspora and at home are very concerned about her safety, given The Gambia Government's poor human rights record. Since coming to power in 1994, President Yahya Jammeh's Government (s) has consistently repressed journalists, set ablaze printing presses and shut down radio stations. On December 16, 2004 Deyda Hydara, a longtime journalist, co-owner and Editor of The Point Newspaper, was shot and killed and two of his co-workers riding in the same car suffered serious bodily injuries." Argues Dr. Saine, "it is against this backdrop that your intervention is urgently needed to secure Ms. Jaw-Manneh's release as we fear for her life and safety in the hands of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), the regime's brutally repressive arm”