Missing Gambian Journalist’s Family Receives Financial  Aid

As GPU/USA Wired $500 Dollars To The Manneh Family

The family of the illegally detained Gambian journalist, Chief Ebrima Manneh, is set to receive another financial aid, courtesy of the Gambia Press Union, USA branch (GPU-USA).

Mr. Manneh was arrested and detained since 2006 by personnel of the highly feared Gambian secret police, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), under the instruction of close and highly feared allies of Gambian dictator, Yahya Jammeh.

According to information received from the Union's outgoing Public Relations Officer, who is also its newly elected Secretary General, Demba Baldeh, an amount of $500 is being channeled through the GPU secretariat in Banjul, for onward submission to the beleaguered family back in Gambia. These latest funds which are said to be the last of the fundraising proceeds the organization conducted on behalf of the family came from contributions done across the Atlantic in the United Kingdom.

According to Mr. Baldeh, the collection was done with the help of one Malick Jeng  in UK, to whom he expressed special thanks and appreciations. Baldeh is also grateful to ''all those who contributed towards supporting the Manneh family during these difficult times.'' He went on to hint that the GPU-USA intends to reach out to the general public for another fundraising drive ''in the next couple of months.''

The Gambia government, including its recalcitrant dictator, Yahya Jammeh, continue to deny knowledge of having Mr. Manneh in its detention, despite deafening international calls for his unconditional release.

All evidence, including testimonies from Manneh's colleagues at the Banjul based pro-government newspaper, the Daily Observer, which the detained journalist worked for until his arrest, direct responsibility to the country's notorious intelligence establishment which appear to serve only the Gambian dictator's personal desires.

The ECOWAS court has ruled in favor of a suit filed by the Media Foundation For West Africa, ordering the Gambia government to release and compensate the detained journalist. But the government continue to pay a deaf ear. A UN body is the last to release a report indicting the defiant Gambian government, calling on it to release the journalist who has neither been charged nor accused openly for any wrong doing.

Manneh is among a host of other Gambians being detained in similar fashion by an authoritarian government with the most distasteful of attitude towards free speech and dissent, a regime which was patched from a rather vindictive and brutal military junta in a coup in July 1994.

ENDS:12/28/09