The United Democratic Party (UDP) has been invited by the Inspector General of Police to meet with the police over a permit request for use of a PA System in its planned countrywide tour.
Speaking yesterday to The Point, the leader of the opposition UDP Lawyer Ousainou Darboe said: “We have been called by the IGP through a Commissioner of Police to go to the Police Headquarters on Monday (today) for the permit to use PA System in our tour.”
On April 2 this year, the UDP wrote a letter to the IGP seeking permission to use public address system during the party’s scheduled tour of the country, but according to the party’s secretary general, the police did not respond to the letter until 15 April, “less than 24 hours” for their embarkation on the tour of the country.
The police, in its reply to the UDP’s request, told the party to “stipulate the time for each of the venues” they intended to hold their meetings, scheduled to have taken place from 16 to 26 April 2015.
However, the UDP considered the request from the police as too late in the day, hence the party decided to go ahead with their proposed tour as scheduled.
On their embarkation of the tour, police briefly “intercepted the tour at Essau” and mounted a barricade at Fass Njaga Choi in the provinces, which interrupted the tour.
However, according to Lawyer Darboe, they have been invited by the police to go for the permit, which might be issued subject to giving the police the details requested for.
Mr Darboe said, if given the required permit, the party would immediately set out on their tour of the country, although “the scheduled period will now be reduced” to seven instead of eleven days as initially planned.