Inspector
General of Police
Gambia
Police Force, Police Headquarters
Banjul,
The Gambia
Dear
Inspector General,
Objection
to APRC Application for Permit to Protest for the Return of Former President
Yahya Jammeh
We
write to object to the application made by the APRC for a permit to stage
protest for the return of Yahya Jammeh to the Gambia planned for the January
16, 2020. We object to this application in the strongest possible terms and
consider it a provocation against the victims of Yahya Jammeh and his regime.
It
is our position that Yahya Jammeh is a fugitive and that any activity that tend
to be in denial of that fact or aimed at provoking victims of his regime must
not be entertained.
It
is not in the interest of peace and stability in the Gambia to allow a
political party that had enabled and in blatant denial of serious human rights
violations committed against Gambians and non-Gambians to stage a protest for
the return of the very person who had masterminded and committed these
violations as evident from the testimonies emerging from the TRRC.
The
purpose of the current transitional justice efforts in the Gambia is to deal with
repressive legacies of the APRC regime in order to ensure that it never again
happen in the Gambia, thus, the application for permission to protest for the
return of Yahya Jammeh is a direct sabotage to the ongoing transitional
processes.
In
the light of the above, we urged your office to reject this application and
take adequate measures to deal with disparaging remarks and threats coming from
the APRC leadership against witnesses that have testified before the TRRC.
We
look forward to your usual cooperation.
Yours
faithfully,
Sheriff
Kijera
CC:
File
CC:
MOJ, MOI, OP, TRRC
CC:
EU Delegation, UNDP TJ, US Embassy, BHC,
CC:
IHRDA, ACHPR
