English / Français

Reporters Without Borders
Press release

14 September 2007

GAMBIA

Public TV producer and presidential press officer jailed for giving wrong information to
media

The detention of state-owned Gambia Radio and Television Services senior producer Malick
Jones and presidential press officer Mam Sait Ceesay since 9 September for allegedly
providing false information to the media, despite a court order yesterday releasing them
on bail, constitutes denial of justice, Reporters Without Borders said today.

“President Yahya Jammeh and his aides consider themselves above the law and any citizen,
including the most loyal ones, are at the mercy of Jammeh’s whims,” the press freedom
organisation said. “Jones and Ceesay are now being held at the sinister Mile Two prison
for a minor offence although a court granted them a provisional release.”

Reporters Without Borders added: “At one level, their detention appears to be the result
of in-fighting within the president’s inner circle. But it is also indicative of Jammeh’s
paranoia and his determination to keep news and information under strict control,
regardless of the price for journalists who refuse to conform."

Jones and Ceesay, who used to edit the privately-owned, pro-government Daily Observer
newspaper, were arrested by police on 9 September and held incommunicado for four days.
Yesterday they were brought before a Banjul court and pleaded not guilty to
“communicating information to a foreign journalist” under article 4 (1) of the 1990
Official Security Act.

Judge B.Y. Camara released them on bail of 200,000 dalasis (6,730 euros) pending trial in
two weeks’ time. But they were rearrested as they left the court and taken to Mile Two
prison near Banjul, with any explanation being offered by the authorities.

Several sources in Gambia said they were arrested for telling the Daily Observer that
Ebrima J.T. Kujabi had been fired as the president’s press and public relations director.
It turned out to be wrong. The newspaper published a brief on 7 September saying Kujabi
had been replaced by Alex Da Costa, a former Medical Research Council press officer and
onetime head of protocol for former president Dawda Jawara. Jammeh is in the habit of
suddenly dismissing aides or senior security officials.

Reporters Without Borders has been told that Jones and Ceesay are also alleged to have
provided information to Freedom Newspaper, an opposition website based in the United
States which is an outspoken critic of the Gambian government and which boasts of having
sources inside the president’s office.