Amnesty International said on Tuesday it was working with senior Gambian officials to secure the unconditional and immediate release of its two reseachers held without charge since the weekend.
The researchers for the London-based human rights watchdog and a Gambian journalist who accompanied them were freed on bail late on Monday after their arrest in the tiny West African nation on Saturday.
But Tania Bernath, a British-American national and Ameen Ayobele, a Nigerian, were still not free to leave The Gambia. They were at the capital’s main police station on Tuesday, where they had been ordered to report back.
The pair were in the former British colony to look into long-standing concerns about human rights there — including conditions of detention, arbitrary arrests and detentions without charge, said Amnesty.
”We are dismayed that our colleagues and the local journalist have not yet been unconditionally released,” said Erwin van der Borght, director of Amnesty International’s Africa programme, in a statement.
”We are taking this up with the Gambian authorities at a senior level,” the statement added. ”Our delegates were on a public and official visit to investigate the human rights situation in The Gambia, and the Gambian authorities had been informed of their visit.
”It is completely unacceptable for any government to attempt to impede the work of human rights workers.”
The researchers were arrested late on Saturday in the eastern town of Basse, 250km east of Banjul, after they visited an opposition politician detained for more than a year.
Yaya Dampha, a journalist with the pro-opposition daily Foroyaa, who was accompanying them, was also arrested.
Other human rights organisations including Reporters sans Frontièeres consider The Gambia, Africa’s smallest mainland nation, to be one of the most repressive as far as media and other freedoms are concerned.
In its latest report on The Gambia, Amnesty International said harassment of journalists critical of the government intensified last year. At least nine local and foreign journalists were detained and some of them were reportedly tortured, said the report.
The watchdog also expressed concern over the treatment of about 70 suspected coup plotters arrested and held for long periods after a foiled attempt to topple President Yahya Jammeh early last year. — Sapa-AFP