Gambia frees AI staff, journo
2007-10-09 08:36
Banjul - Two researchers for London-based rights watchdog Amnesty International and a local journalist were on Monday freed on bail after their arrest in the west African nation of Gambia, said their lawyer.
The London-based specialists for West Africa, Tania Bernath and Ameen Ayobele, were arrested late on Saturday in the eastern town of Basse after they visited an opposition politician detained for more than a year.
Yaya Dampha, a journalist with the pro-opposition daily Foroyaa, who was travelling with Bernath, a British-American national, and Ayobele, a Nigerian, was also arrested.
One of their lawyers, Lamin Camara, said: "They have been released on bail, and asked to report back to the police tomorrow at 09:00. They have not been charged yet."
Each paid bail of 100 000 dalasi ($5) and Bernath and Ayobele had to surrender their passports.
Journos 'harassed'
Many human rights organisations considered the government of Gambia, Africa's smallest mainland nation which was an enclave in Senegal, to be one of the most repressive as far as media and other freedoms were concerned.
In its latest report on Gambia, Amnesty International said harassment of journalists critical of the government intensified last year with at least nine local and foreign journalists being detained, some of them reportedly tortured.
The watchdog also expressed concern over the treatment of some 70 suspected coup plotters arrested and held for long periods after a foiled attempt to topple President Yahya Jammeh early last year.
In an earlier telephone interview from London on Monday, Eliane Drakopoulos, Amnesty's spokesperson in charge of Africa, said the global watchdog was seeking their "unconditional release".
Dampha said a United States embassy official visited them in police custody and helped them get out.
Democratic liberty
Dampha said that "police suspected us of spying" shortly after visiting a opposition local government councillor, Ousman Jatta, held in a police station near Basse for unknown reasons since August 2006, a month before presidential elections won by Jammeh.
Dampha said: "By denying us our liberty the authorities have demonstrated that they have no consideration of democratic liberty."
However, Camara, their lawyer, said the police "have not given any reasons yet and this is why they had not been charged" and added that they had not complained of ill-treatment by police.
The trio were nabbed on the ground that they did not have permission to visit the police station in Basse, 250km east of Banjul.
They were later transferred to police cells in the capital. A senior Amnesty official in neighbouring Senegal said the two were on "an official mission cleared by the Gambian government".
Amnesty had also expressed concern that "there has been were no official investigations into past human rights violations" in this country of 1.5 million.