El mundo puede cambiar, pero no va a cambiar solo

Dear President / Dear Minister

I’m writing to you to express my deep concern about the situation of the journalist Ebrima B. Manneh, who has been arrested without charges and kept incommunicado since July 2006.

No reason has been given for his arrest, so I urge you to clarify his legal status and investigate claims of involvement of the National Intelligence Agency in the arrest and continued detention of Ebrima Manneh.

Amnesty International and several other Human Rights Organizations consider him to be a prisoner of conscience.

Recently the ECOWAS Court of Justice decided that his right to liberty and to a fair trial, which are protected under Articles 6 and 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, had been violated.

For all these reasons I call you for his immediate and unconditional release.

I am also worried about his current state of health.

Let me to say that I think that Manneh’s case highlights a wider problem within The Gambia, where a number of journalists have been arbitrarily arrested and held incommunicado and under any charge for various lengths of time.

Thank you for your attention to this serious matter.