AI calls on ECOWAS leaders to speak against rights violation in The Gambia
Amnesty International on Friday appealed to West African leaders to speak out against Gambian President Yahaya Jammeh’s continuous crackdown on political freedoms and widespread human rights violations.
The group said freedom had remained an illusion for most Gambians, particularly journalists and human rights activists, who lived in fear of arbitrary arrest, torture, unfair trials, disappearance and extra-judicial executions.
Mr Lawrence Amesu, Director of Amnesty International (AI), Ghana, said this at a press conference in Accra to mark “The Gambia Day of Action” in Accra.
The day, which is commemorated on July 22 each year by AI with various campaign events in different countries across the world, is to continue to highlight the serious human rights violations in the Gambia for all peace lovers to take immediate action.
Mr Amesu said the objective of this year’s commemoration was also to raise the Gambian human rights concerns with influential international and regional forums as well as provide Gambians in the Diaspora an opportunity to form a strong international network of activists that could respond to human rights infractions in Gambia.
He called on Africa regional bodies to prioritise Gambia’s deplorable human right records and encourage international organizations, especially the United Nations, to ensure the protection of human rights in Gambia.
Ms Jane McCosher, a Research Advocate of the Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC), Ghana, charged leaders in the sub-region who had interest and influence in the matter to intensify efforts to right the wrongs in Gambia.
She entreated the Gambian Government to meet the own obligations it had for the people under both national and international law.
“Currently, the government of the Gambia is failing its citizens by not respecting rights and freedoms guaranteed to them in the 1997 Gambian Constitution, as well as several international conventions to which the Gambia is a party,” she said.
Ms McCosher said the Gambia had ratified both the international convention on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples rights.
She urged the government of the Gambia to cease immediately the practices that violated the human rights of its people and address past violations of its citizens in a manner that was consistent with domestic and international law.
Mr Kojo Asante, a Senior Research Fellow of the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) Ghana, called on all decent Africans to speak and act with one accord to deliver Gambia from the reign of terror.
He said in spite of the several efforts to highlight the many instances of human rights abuses in Gambia, there were still reports of the government’s complicity in abuses such as abductions, arbitrary arrests, torture and detention of citizens.
He said CDD, Ghana, considered the appalling development in the Gambia as an attempt by the government to perpetuate a “climate of fear” in the country which violated universal human rights and democratic principles.
“We find it offensive and anachronistic reports by AI of a state-sponsored ‘witch-hunt’ which has led to approximately 1,000 people taken away from their villages to secret detention centres,” he added.
Mr Asante called on the government of the Gambia to establish an independent and international commission of inquiry to investigate the whereabouts and fate of victims of forced disappearance and ensure that those responsible for the human rights violations were brought to justice.
Source: GNA