Gambia

Two prominent gender and human rights defenders, Dr Isatou Touray and Amie Bojang Sissoho were arrested and detained on Monday 11 October 2010 by Gambian security forces, kept in police custody at the Banjul Police station, and sent to jail on Tuesday 12 October 2010.

A three-day, capacity-building training on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) for 30 media practitioners across the Gambia got underway in Banjul. Organized by The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices affecting The Health of Women and Children ((Gamcotrap), with the support of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) joint programme to accelerate the stoppage of FGM, the training is meant to build the capacity of the participants for effective and progressive reporting on the harmful traditio...read more

A court in Gambia has rejected the appeal of an opposition politician who was jailed for using a megaphone at a rally without permission, a case that has drawn harsh criticism from foreign donors. The jailing of Femi Peters, campaign manager of the main opposition UDP party, led to the United States and former colonial power Britain speaking out over concerns about human rights in Gambia, moves which drew an angry rebuke from President Yahya Jammeh who accused them of backing the opposition.

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Since the 1994 coup d’état that saw President Yahya Jammeh rise to power, the Gambian media has been forced to work under repressive and restrictive conditions. The disappearance of editors and journalists, destruction of property and threat of imprisonment and harm by Jammeh’s National Intelligence Agency officers mean Gambian media outlets must either praise the ruling party or close their doors. Alagi Yorro Jallow, once an editor of a now closed private Gambian publication, discusses the G...read more

The country representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in The Gambia, Dr. Thomas Sukwa, said the vaccination campaign for the Swine Flu, A(H1N1), though not yet reported in the country, targets only 10 per cent of the nation's population.The week-long, nation-wide vaccination campaign, spearheaded by the Ministry of Heath and Social Welfare, in collaboration with the WHO office in Banjul, started Wednesday.

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