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AI Dakar office reprimands President Jammeh
Sunday, 25 July 2010 13:02
By Kemo Cham“We urge the government of President Yahya Jammeh to open the prison gates to allow human rights organizations to verify the conditions of incarceration in the Gambia's prisons,” said Estelle Higonnet, a researcher at the West Africa office of Amnesty International at a forum on the situation of human rights in Gambia.
This statement was part of the global campaign staged to coincide with ‘Freedom Day’ celebrations in Gambia, last Thursday, commemorating the 1994 coup that brought Yahya Jammeh to power.
Amnesty International expressed “surprise” at the decision of the Senegalese authorities to ban a planned march in Dakar, on Thursday, to denounce “the dictatorship” in Gambia.
“The response of the Senegalese authorities is weak. This is the second time the government denied us permission to demonstrate to condemn the serious violations of human rights in Gambia,” stated Estelle Higonnet.
President Yahya Jammeh has come under constant global condemnation for his alleged human rights violations in 16 years of rule in Gambia. Amnesty International has been at the forefront of this denunciation.
The global rights group has documented the appalling treatment of nearly a thousand villagers widely reported to have been abducted in March 2009 and taken by force in to secret detention centers by 'witch hunters', purportedly on the orders of President Yahya Jammeh. After being kidnapped, the prisoners, mainly old people, were alleged to have been forced to swallow hallucinogenic concoctions and tortured to confess to witchcraft. Reports say that some of the victims experienced kidney problems as a result, and that at least six people died of renal failure.
Amnesty International, as part of the ‘Freedom Day’ protest, also cited the case of fifty foreigners, including 44 Ghanaians, who were reportedly killed in 2005 by Gambian security operatives, among various other detentions of opponents of President Jammeh.
Walf Grand Place, a leading daily newspaper in Dakar, cited testimonies by Gambian exiles based in the Senegalese capital, who it said confirmed severe crackdown on dissenting voices back home in Gambia.
The government of Abdoulaye Wade has been waning in its stance against increasing anti-democratic tendencies in its smaller neighbor since the rapprochement that resulted from a 2009 visit by the Senegalese leader to Banjul. This has sparked worries among human rights activists, who say Senegal is abdicating its obligation to influence its neighbor in ensuring real democracy.
RADDHO, a local human rights group in Dakar, Tuesday denounced Yahya Jammeh for his autocratic behavior.
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