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Gambia could emulate Mozambique in solving Deyda Hydara’s murder - RSF
Tuesday, 14 December 2010 17:59
By JollofNews Staff WriterMozambique's handling of journalist Carlos Cardoso’s murder should be taken as a model by the authorities in Gambia and other African countries, said Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
The death of Deyda Hydara remains among the most contending issues between media/civil society organisations at home and abroad and the Gambian government, which has remained largely disinclined to pursue the matter, about six years after the founding editor of the Banjul based The Point newspaper was short dead by suspected state
security agents.Next Thursday will mark exactly six years since that day.
African countries must actively combat impunity in cases of violence against journalists, taking their lead from Mozambique's response to journalist Carlos Cardoso's murder in November 2000, RSF said.
This call is part of a statement by the media watchdog marking the 12th anniversary of the murder of another prominent West African journalist, Norbert Zongo of Burkinabe.
Zongo’s charred body was found in his burnt out car along with those of three of his companions, on 13 December 1998. He was at the time investigating the death of a chauffeur of President Blaise Compaoré's brother, François Compaoré.
Carlos Cardoso, another valuable investigative journalist, like Hydara and Zongo, was also murdered in his car. He was investigating one of the biggest corruption cases in Mozambique.
However, according to RSF, unlike the case of Cardoso's death, the murders of many other African journalists remain unpunished.
“No one has ever been convicted for the murder of Gambian newspaper editor Deyda Hydara, who was shot dead in Banjul on 16 December 2004. Impunity reigns in Somalia, Africa's deadliest country for the media, where murders of journalists are never investigated properly,” RSF said, citing similar situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the murders of three prominent journalists remained unsolved.
The Gambian media fraternity is at an advanced stage in preparation to commemorate the passing of one of its prominent members, Deyda Hydara.
In its latest global report on the situation of the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) placed Gambia among the top three leaders in Africa which continue to detain members of the press incommunicado without charge or trial.
The US based media watchdog named Gambia alongside Eretria and Ethiopia, countries run by two of the most authoritarian regimes in the region.
“Impunity is not inevitable in Africa. Combating it is just a question of political will," said RSF’s Secretary-general Jean-François Julliard.
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