We have reached out to him as someone close to the situation of the press at the time, to verify and fact-check the remarks made before a panel of three judges in the Federal Criminal Court based in Bellinzona. Sonko’s remarks came as he was led on questioning by his defence lawyer, Mr Philip Currat, in an attempt to persuade the Court that claims by Musa Saidykhan and Madi Ceesay, that the paper was closed by the Police was somewhat false.
Both Mr Saidykhan and Mr Ceesay acted as separate private plaintiffs against Ousman Sonko, to join the office of the federal prosecutor in Switzerland in holding Ousman Sonko responsible for crimes of torture, inhuman treatment, and other rights violations committed under his watch as former Inspector General of Police and minister responsible for security under Jammeh. Other charges he faces include rape and sexual violence.
New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in its 2006 report (https://cpj.org/2007/02/attacks-on-the-press-2006-the-gambia/) titled “Attacks on the Press in The Gambia”, said “Government forces shut down a leading independent newspaper, jailed journalists without due process, forced others into exile, and brought criminal charges against a reporter under a repressive media law. Just before the elections, a state television reporter, Dodou Sanneh, was jailed secretly for almost a week and interrogated about his coverage of [opposition campaign]. Self-censorship increased, and the authorities pressured management at the country’s only private daily newspaper, the Daily Observer, to adopt a pro-Jammeh editorial line. The government retained a firm grip on the broadcast sector, despite the presence of some private commercial and community radio stations. With the December 2004 murder of newspaper editor Deyda Hydara still unsolved and a string of arson attacks on independent media outlets unpunished since 2000, the crackdown confirmed the Gambia as one of Africa’s worst places to be a journalist.”
Fact: Gambia Press Union was the first to establish a journalism school in The Gambia in 2010, while the School of Journalism and Digital Media of the University of The Gambia came four years later with support of UNESCO funding. “Media Academy for Journalism and Communication (MAJaC) is a not-for-profit limited liability Company, established in 2010 by the Gambia Press Union (GPU) to strengthen democracy through broad-based and high-quality professional training for media and communication specialists (https://majac.gm/about-us).”
Claim (Ousman Sonko to the Court in Bellinzona, Switzerland): “It is not true that the state and the Police closed down The Independent newspaper. It was closed based on court order.”
Sonko was asked by his lawyer if the press under Jammeh was not free to report on government, to which Sonko agreed, that the press was indeed free to report on government as evidenced in publications on arrests, detentions, and disappearances published in the news and presented before the court as proof of this. He said Jammeh established the first ever school of journalism to train Gambian journalists at the University of The Gambia and he Sonko could not do anything when his wife, a journalist, was attacked and beaten.
Context: Former president of the Gambia Press Union and a former editor-in-chief of The Independent who was closely monitoring the situation, Mr Demba Jawo said as far as he was aware, there was never any court order to close down the newspaper: “But it was arbitrarily closed down by the police.
“I can recall that on that very morning, I passed by the premises of The Independent and I found some of the staff being pinned down there by some plain-clothes policemen and not allowing anyone to leave the place. When I asked what the problem was, one of the officers told me that they were acting on orders to close down The Independent as well as not allow the staff to leave the premises until further notice,” he said.
Asked if Sonko’s remarks about press freedom under Yahya Jammeh reflects the reality then, Mr Jawo said the press under Jammeh was all but free to report critically under Jammeh.
Fact: “I can remember there was a case involving Citizen FM when in 1998, it was forcibly closed down and proprietor Baboucarr Gaye (deceased) was arrested and taken to court charged with operating a radio station without a valid license under the 1913 Telegraphic Act. In August 1998, the Nigerian magistrate presiding over the case convicted him and ordered the radio station be closed down and its equipment be forfeited to the state,” Jawo verified.
Mr Gaye, however, appealed to the high court, presided over by Justice Wallace Grante, who quashed the conviction and ordered the IGP to return the equipment to the owner within seven days.
Fact: “I cannot remember any other court order to close down a media house,” he said.
Also asked to list those media houses arbitrarily closed down by Jammeh regime when he was chairman of the Gambia Press Union, he said they included, Taranga FM, Sud FM, The Standard, The Independent, Daily News, The Torch (of Sana Manneh).
Verdict: “Of course, it is not true to say that the media was free under the Jammeh regime. The very fact that more than half of Gambian journalists fled the country as well as those left in the country resorted to self-censorship was enough indication that the media was not free,” Jawo said.
