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| Some of the "pardoned" prisoners in The Gambia |
The contention that the
case of Alhagie Abdoulie Ceesay of Teranga FM radio did not become a cause celebre
because the "case did not go viral" in social media parlance implies that we have not been
doing enough - advocacy-wise - about his case. It is a valid point and, in my view,
deserves further examination.
To do a reasonable job
of analyzing the issue , we must first ask the question: Was it a deliberate and
conscious act of omission? We do not want to think so because true and genuine
human rights activists do not discriminate. We have seen it demonstrated
numerous times. Activists were the ones, in a sea of mullahs, who stood their
ground and led the fight in support of the LGBT community when assumed members were being arrested and
tortured by Jammeh - assumed, because agents of the security forces were roaming the tourist hotel areas and arresting anyone identified as gay by police informers.
If the act of omission
was not deliberate in the case of Alhagie Abdoulie Ceesay, then it must have been something else. That something else is what all
of us should focus our attention to, and that is the fact that Jammeh is arresting, abducting
and incarcerating Gambians at a faster rate than we can keep up with.
The case
of Seedy Jaiteh, GAMTEL's Director of Human Resources, is a case in point. He
was taken into custody by the NIA over 400 days ago, and thanks to Foroyaa, we
had all forgotten about him. But how many Seedy Jaitehs are there? No one can
say with any degree of accuracy. The best we can do is - guess.
This brings me to a
way forward.
First, let us demand from the regime of Yaya Jammeh a
comprehensive list of all those he claimed to have released and pardoned. I do
not see how we can really start ensuring equality of treatment of
Jammeh's
victims if we do not have any idea of the magnitude of the problem.
Second, the
list is a necessary first step to accounting for every single life threatened or
taken away by this vile regime.
Seedy Jaiteh's family
is wondering about his whereabouts. They were expecting him to be released
because he appears to have fulfilled all of the criteria outlined by the
regime, and yet he has not returned home. Where is he? Without an official (gazetted) list, who can say for certain where Seedy Jaiteh is. What if the
regime claims that he's was among the "three hundred and something"
prisoners released, where is the proof to dispute the regime's claim, even if the claim is spurious.
We have seen a list of
20 Gambians whose release is being demanded from the Jammeh regime because the assumption is that
they are alive and still in Mile II - a reasonable and plausible assumption.
However, we find this to be a flawed approach that is open to criticism. How do we
know there are only 20 and not 21 or 50 or 100 lesser known Gambians and
foreigners languishing in jail for a longer period and under harsher conditions
than the 20 prisoners listed. The fairer and more inclusive approach is to demand a comprehensive
list from the regime and even there, we may still not be able to account for
every victim of the Jammeh regime - EVER. But, at least, it is a start.
