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| Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh |
Gambia's population cannot fight and expose the corruption and other heinous acts that have occurred without fear. In this tiny country, democracy takes one step forward, one step back. What can we do? It's a damnably difficult question. And what can the international community do to rescue Gambia from chaos? Isn't Gambia still a sun-drenched holiday favorite for package tourists who don't read the newspapers? There is something the press in nearly every country should be able to do - it can care, and it can ask questions, and it can advocate for change. But not in Gambia. In Gambia, there are many extrajudicial executions, nocturnal killings and beatings and most recently, nine executions of men and women on death row, many of whom received grossly unfair trials.
Unfortunately, Gambia is no longer a place where democracy and human rights are upheld. Over the years, President Yahya Jammeh has become ever more dictatorial - and, some might even say, crazy. DeWayne Wickham rightly pointed out that 'Yahya Jammeh could well be Africa's biggest psychopath', like the late Idi Amin, the former Ugandan president who generously proclaimed himself 'Lord of all the beasts of the earth and fishes of the seas.' Wickham also said, 'Jammeh has an other worldly sense of self.'
In October 2009, Gambia's director of public prosecution was reported to have said that all prisoners who were sentenced to death would be executed by hanging. And that was no bluff; 13 people were handed the death penalty that year, and the same number were given that sentence the following year. Jammeh currently has 47 people on death row, and dozens serving life imprisonment sentences.
Just recently, nine prisoners were reportedly dragged from their prison cells without any warning or even being able to say good-bye or given the opportunity to have their last meals and prayers. They were lined up and shot by firing squad, and now the remaining 38 others on death row risk the same fate.
Many family members claim that they were not aware of the execution of their family members until they heard it from the news. They do not know when they were killed, how they were killed, or where they are buried, and whether they were buried according to Islamic rites.
The Gambian government issued a statement in support of the recent execution of the nine inmates: 'All persons on death row have been tried by the Gambian courts of competent jurisdiction and thereof convicted and sentenced to death in accordance with the law. They have exhausted all their legal rights of appeal as provided by law.'
In the days that have followed, there have been an unconfirmed 18 executions that have taken place in a second batch of brutal executions.
Source: AllAfrica, Sept. 13, 2012
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