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Gambia News : Gambian president grants pardon to imprisoned journalists
The media rights group, Reporters Without Borders has expressed
relieve at the release of six journalists – all members of the Gambia
Press Union – who were given two-year jail sentences on sedition
charges on 6 August.
According to a press
released issued here Friday, Reporters Without Borders said the
journalists were released Thursday evening from the prisons where they
were being held, after receiving a pardon from President Yahya Jammeh.
“The happy ending must not be allowed to eclipse the injustice these
six leading journalists suffered,” Reporters Without Borders said.
“Despite being innocent, they spent a month in prison, far from their
families and, in some cases, at a danger to their lives because of
poor health. We hope they can now be safely reunited with their
families and colleagues and that, in the wake of this pardon, the
president will now loosen the vice on the Gambian media,” the release said.
The six GPU journalists were freed after the state TV
station, Gambia Radio and Television Services quoted the president’s
office as saying they had been “pardoned” by the president as a gesture
for the Ramadan.
According to the release, the Gambian High Court
convicted the journalists on six charges ranging from defamation to
“seditious publication” for issuing a joint statement on behalf of the
GPU calling on President Jammeh to recognise his government’s
responsibility for journalist Deyda Hydara’s murder in 2004.
The six freed journalists are Sarata Jabbi-Dibba, Emil
Touray, Pa Modou Faal, all members of the GAmbia Press Union
executive ; Pap Saine, publisher of The Point and Reuters
correspondent, Ebrima Sawaneh, The Point editor and Sam Sarr, editor of
the Foroyaa newspaper.
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- One more illustration of lack of freedom of expression and for Jammeh to claim otherwise flies in the face of the facts. The release of these innocent journalists is not an act of mercy but one of desperation in the face of international outcry.
(Posted on September 5, 2009, 7:44 PM Ansu Koroma)
- the truth always prevail at last,Jammeh should help his head in shame,this people did there job i am very proud of them,they put there country first,
Jammeh time will come soon,and we wont pardon him,what he did to us is fresh n our mind,time ll tel
(Posted on September 5, 2009, 1:02 AM freedom of speech)
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