GAMBIA UPDATE: Government Yet to Pay Compensation to Four Journalists

 

[The] ECOWAS [Court] found that Gambia’s laws criminalizing speech and its treatment of four journalists during their arrest violated their rights, a statement by the Media Legal Defence Initiative said. Photo Credit: Modou S. Joof/FPI

By Modou S. Joof

The Gambia government has yet to pay six million dalasi (US$125, 000) compensation to four journalists whose rights were violated under the previous regime.

Journalists Alhagie Jobe, Lamin Fatty, Fatou Camara, and Fatou Jaw Manneh faced degrading treatment that involved arrests, detention, court actions, torture and forced to flee their country between 2006 and 2014.

Exactly one year ago, the Ecowas Court of Justice ruled that Gambia’s laws criminalising speech and its treatment of the journalists during their arrest violated their rights.

It directed that The Gambia “immediately repeal or amend” the laws and pay compensation to the four journalists.

Jobe, Fatty, Camara, and Manneh lived in exile for fear of further persecution.

The Barrow administration has yet to make a pronouncement as to whether it intends to implement the ruling – though it complied with two previous rulings on similar cases of press violations.

Jobe and Fatty were awarded two million dalasi (US$42, 000) each for the violation of their human rights including the right to freedom of expression and right to freedom from torture, while Camara and Manneh would get one million dalasi (US$21, 000) for the violation of their rights.

In December 2015, the Media Legal Defence Initiative, MLDI, filed a case challenging Gambia’s media laws on behalf the journalists  – with the the Federation of African Journalists acting as a representative of all Gambian journalists whose rights have been, and continue to be, violated by the maintenance of criminal laws on libel, sedition and false news.

Last year, the government paid compensation to families of two journalists, one disappeared and another killed, in response to two Ecowas court rulings in 2008 and 2010. But it has yet to settle a third case of compensation to another journalist who was tortured.

Gambian journalists endured a severe crackdown  under President Yahya Jammeh, who presided over a 22-year “reign of terror”, according to the Media Foundation for West Africa.