The non-profit Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for President Yahya Jammeh to drop charges against two journalists accused of ‘providing false information to a public officer’.
State security agents in The Gambia arrested Musa Sheriff, a Liberian newspaper editor and Sainey Marenah, a freelance journalist on Monday, claiming they were acting on orders direct from the President, according to news reports. If convicted, they face five years in jail and/or a fine of 50,000 Gambian dalasi (about £800). Both men have been denied bail.
Sheriff and Marenah were arrested in connection with a story that Marenah wrote for Sheriff’s newspaper, The Voice. The December 2013 article entitled Nineteen Green Youths Defect to UDP discussed a claim by the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) that 19 youth supporters of President Jammeh, known colloquially as “Green Youths,” had defected from the ruling political party and joined the UDP. The ruling party dismissed the claim as baseless.
“The charges against Musa Sheriff and Sainey Marenah are a reminder that the Gambian government is determined to stamp out criticism and crush the independent press,” said Peter Nkanga, CPJ’s West Africa consultant. “We call on authorities to withdraw all charges and release the two journalists immediately.”
