“Police Reportedly Looking For Three Years Jotna Top Official After His Comments” reported by Fatu Network, December,17 2019
By ALAGI YORRO JALLOW
MAMUDU: If confirmed to be true, tragically, our country is headed back to the odious days of Yahya Jammeh when dissent was regarded as criminal, protest as a coup and reason as treason.
Mamudu: What crime Sheriff Ceesay and others have committed or what any criminal offence they are liable for any civil claim for defamation? By singing about the ills affecting our society the defense of ‘fair comment’ is available to everyone.
Mamudu: Proclaiming “the President to relinquish power” even with an alleged reckless and boastful braggadocio is not tantamount to staging a revolution or attempting a forcible overthrow of government. A peaceful protest that is dressed up in a hyperbolic garb of a revolution is not a treasonable felony.
Mamudu: No government in the Gambia, civil or military, has ever been brought down by streets protests. Peaceful protests and demonstrations, even with incendiary or inflammatory declarations and denunciations of government, which some may find objectionable, are an exercise of the democratic rights to freedoms of expression, assembly and association as enshrined in the Constitution.
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