President
Adama Barrow has said he intends to reform the prisons system, and even build
new prisons to meet the level of world standard prisons.
He
made this pronouncement yesterday during a meeting with the African Union
Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AUCHPR).
His
government is working on a lot of reforms in all sectors even though it would
take time, he said, adding that he wanted the human rights group to visit The
Gambia because the country had totally changed, from a dictatorship to a
democratic state.
They
would also make sure that prisons are visited freely without hindrance, for
cells and inmates to be inspected.
People
in prisons should be reformed so that if the prisoners are out of the prison
they would be useful in the society, not the reverse, the Gambian leader said.
Early
this month, the Minister of the Interior, Mai Fatty, visited the prison, and
according to him, “the conditions in the prisons are very poor”.
“It
is inhuman to keep people for even a day in that horrible place, and the
prisons need reform,” the Interior minister declared.
