 Professional Background
Fatou Jaw Manneh is the US-based contributor to the opposition website AllGambian.net and former reporter for the Gambian independent newspaper Daily Observer.
Current Status
Fatou Jaw Manneh was arrested on her arrival in Banjul in March 2007. She was detained incommunicado for a week and is now on trial for sedition for writing articles critical of the Gambian President. She faces a heavy prison sentence if convicted. The trial has been continually delayed as it is passed from court to court. PEN believes that the criminal charges against Manneh are a violation of her right to freedom of expression guaranteed by the Gambian Constitution and international human rights treaties.
Case History
Manneh was arrested by National Intelligence Agency (NIA) officers at the international airport in the Gambian capital, Banjul, on her arrival from the United States on March 28, 2007. She had been living in the USA since gaining political asylum in 1994, following the coup that brought President Jammeh to power, and is understood to have returned to the Gambia to pay tribute to her late father. The journalist was detained for a week in contravention of the Gambian Constitution, which states that individuals be brought before a court within 72 hours. During her detention she was denied access to a lawyer and to her family.
On April 4 Manneh finally appeared before a court in Kanifing, 7 ½ miles outside the capital. She was charged on three counts of sedition under Gambia’s criminal code: “intention to commit sedition,” “publication of seditious words” and “publication of false news intended to cause public fear and alarm to the Gambian public.” Each count carries a maximum prison term of two years or a fine or both. Manneh pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. Her travel documents were reportedly confiscated. A fourth charge, that of “uttering seditious words,” was added on June 20.
The trial is being dragged out, with counsels reportedly often failing to turn up in court and endless wrangling over which court should hear the case. These delays have prompted speculation that the state lacks evidence for the prosecution and is trying to buy time.
The articles for which Manneh is being prosecuted include an interview she gave in which she accused President Yahya Jammeh of “tearing our beloved country to shreds” and called him a “bundle of terror”. The interview was first published in the now banned bi-weekly newspaper The Independent in June 2004, and later published on several websites, including AllGambian.net in October 2005. In 2003 Manneh wrote an article for The Independent focusing on Gambia’s endemic poverty and corruption (‘Jammeh under the Microscope’) which resulted in the arrest and detention of the paper’s editor, Abdoulie Sey. The Independent was shut down by the Gambian government in March 2006 and has not been allowed to resume publication. |
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