The message was conveyed by the Secretary General of the Union, Modou S. Joof, at the ongoing 81st Ordinary Session of the Commission at Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara Conference Center in Banjul on Tuesday.
“We are concerned that the Criminal Offences Bill, 2022, which is currently in parliament, replicated the “False Publication and Broadcasting” law – a draconian provision from the Criminal Code which is still being used against journalists – with a punishment for anyone found guilty of up to one year imprisonment or a fine of more than $3000 USD or both,” he flagged.
“On September 26 and September 30, 2024, the Deputy Editor and the Editor-In-chief of a local daily, The Voice newspaper, were charged with “False Publication and Broadcasting” over a news story on President Barrow’s rumoured plans to quit the presidency by 2026. Criminal proceedings against the two journalists began on October 8, 2024 – the first of such trials against a journalist since the end of the dictatorship in 2016.”
“Contrary to commitments made on media law reforms, press freedom and freedom of expression, The Gambia government is also making new laws like the Cybercrime Bill, 2023, with provisions that could be used to restrict press freedom and freedom of expression which could be used to target journalists, human rights activists, opposition activists, and social media users.”
“On media law reform, notably, criminal defamation and false publication online are no longer applicable after been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of The Gambia in 2018.
“Sedition laws still exist; however, a new Criminal Offences Bill which seeks to repeal the Criminal Code, has not replicated the sedition law and once enacted, sedition will no longer be an offence.
The False Publication and Broadcasting law, among other draconian Gambian media laws, was recommended for repeal by the ECOWAS Court of Justice in 2018, by Gambia’s Truth Commission in 2021, and by a government Media Law Review Committee in 2018.”
He recommended to the commission to urge the government to ensure Gambian Parliament to consider recommendations by the Gambia Press Union to remove False Publication and Broadcasting from the Criminal Offences Bill, 2022.
He said that the GPU mission is to ensure the Gambian Parliament remove entirely or revise provisions in Section 6 1(a) and subsections (b) and (c) of the Cybercrime Bill, 2023, which in their current form, would infringe upon fundamental rights and freedoms for journalists, the opposition, human rights defenders, and social media users contrary to local and internationally guaranteed rights to freedom of expression.
