Amnesty says 'fear rules' in GambiaOpponents of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh Yahya (Abdul-Aziz Jemus Junkung) Jammeh (born May 25, 1965) is the President of The Gambia. As chairman of the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council, he took control of the country in a military coup in July 1994, and was elected as president two years later, in September 1996, are subjected to daily rights violations including torture, Amnesty International Amnesty International (AI,) human-rights organization founded in 1961 by Englishman Peter Benenson; it campaigns internationally against the detention of prisoners of conscience, for the fair trial of political prisoners, to abolish the death penalty and torture of said Tuesday in an damning report entitled "Gambia: Fear Rules". "Routinely, people are unlawfully arrested, without warrants, are not told the reasons for their arrest, and often do not have access to their families or lawyers. Often they are not charged within the 72 hours mandated by the law," Amnesty researcher Tania
"There is a whole range of violations, torture is often used and for those charged... they don't experience fair trial," she said. Published in Nigeria's administrative capital Abuja, the study chronicled right abuses in recent years in this small west African West Africa A region of western Africa between the Sahara Desert and the Gulf of Guinea. It was largely controlled by colonial powers until the 20th century. West African adj. & n. country which is nestled inside Senegal. Amnesty said suspects were arbitrarily arrested and if they make it to court at all many did not get fair trials. Fear pervades across-the-board and there have been cases of people disappearing, the rights watchdog said. "There is an awful number of people that are unlawfully detained... these cases are still going on and something needs to be done to prevent them in the future," Bernath said. The report was launched on the sidelines On the sidelines An investor who decides not to invest due to market uncertainty. on the sidelines Of or relating to investors who, having assessed the market, have decided to avoid committing their funds. of a two-week-long meeting of members of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights  The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR which opened on Monday.
The situation has worsened since a foiled coup attempt against Jammeh in March 2006 which saw dozens of civilians and soldiers arrested, Amnesty said. "Against a backdrop of arbitrary unlawful arrests, detentions and other human rights violations, all public protests have ceased in Gambia. "Lawyers are reluctant to take on human rights cases for fear of reprisals REPRISALS, war. The forcibly taking a thing by one nation which belonged to another, in return or satisfaction for a injury committed by the latter on the former. Vatt. B., 2, ch. 18, s. 342; 1 Bl. Com. ch. 7. 2. , and families of the victims are afraid to speak out. "The media, for the most part, censors itself in the face of arrests, fines, threats and physical attacks that have been meted out Adj. 1. meted out - given out in portions apportioned, dealt out, doled out, parceled out distributed - spread out or scattered about or divided up to those accused of criticizing the government," the report said. Ugona Duru of the Media Foundation for West Africa said "there is a high level of fear and tension" among Gambian journalists. She slammed Gambia for its "contempt and absolute disregard" of a June ruling by the regional ECOWAS ECOWAS Economic Community Of West African States court ordering it to release journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh, who was arrested in 2006 after the foiled coup. Amnesty called on the international community to exert pressure on Gambia to stop the abuses and on Banjul itself to cease the violations. "The situation in the Gambia is not well known, the civil society and the judiciary systems are weak," said Bernath. Launching the report outside Gambia, the seat of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights "highlights the irony that these violations are happening under the nose of the commission," she said. "Just as the African Commission (on human rights) looks at human rights violations in other countries, it must take greater attention to what is going in The Gambia," she added. The 57-page report cites dozens of cases of abuses, among them the murder of an outspoken journalist and former AFP correspondent in Gambia, Deyda Hydara, in 2005. The same year 50 migrants, among them 44 Ghanaians, were reportedly killed by security forces using machetes and axes at a farm outside Banjul. 
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