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ACHPR urged to pressure Gambia to produce journalist Manneh & investigate Deyda’s killing
Tuesday, 11 May 2010 19:36
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has, among others, been urged
to put pressure on The Gambia government to produce journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh and investigate the killing of veteran journalist Deyda Hydara. This call was made on Monday, 10 May 2010 by members of the special interest groups dealing with freedom of expression at the Forum on the participation of NGOs for the 47th Ordinary session of the Commission which starts Wednesday May 12.
The group also demands member states to abolish all draconian laws that curtailed the right to freedom of expression and that of the press as stipulated in the African charter, and to encourage the member states to immediately enact laws of freedom of information and to decriminalize all media offenses.
Mr Manneh was picked up from his office since 6 July 2006, while at work, and he has since then gone missing without trace.
The Accra based Media Foundation for West Africa took up the matter on behalf of his family before the sub-regional ECOWAS Court of Justice, which eventually ruled that the journalist be produced and compensated US$100, 000, but to no avail.
The late Mr Hydara, co-publisher and managing editor of the Point newspaper, was shot to death by unidentified assailant (s) at the Sankung Sillah Junction along the Banjul highway, on 16 December 2004, while driving his staff home. The incident occurred on the eve of his paper’s thirteenth anniversary. Repeated calls for the perpetrators of this act to be brought to book are yet to yield any result. Meanwhile, the special interest group also expressed deep concern about the state of freedom of expression and freedom of information which is considerably deteriorating in Africa .
The Commission is urged to play the leader’s role by taking appropriate actions that would lead to the unconditional and immediate release of journalists from prisons in Eritrea, another country run by an utter indifferent government.
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