Gambia: Police detains opposition leader

A leading opposition figure in the West African state of Gambia is reported to have been arrested by the country’s police. Mr Femi Peters, Propaganda Secretary of the Gambia’s main opposition United Democratic Party, was picked up by the police, on Sunday, following his party’s alleged failure to secure police permit to convene a political rally in the commercial city of Serre-Kunda.

The Freedom Newspaper, a leading Gambian owned online newspaper, quoted sources as saying that Mr Peters voluntarily turned himself over to police when approached. He is being accused of what police call “breaching public peace,” even though party officials argue that it is their constitutional right to convene such political rallies.

Earlier reports indicated that the Gambian police had turned down a request by the opposition UDP to convene a rally in Serre-Kunda, the country’s largest city. Members of the country’s main political party apparently took the bull by the horn and went ahead to defy the authorities and held their rally.

There are no reports yet of any charges been preferred against the detained opposition figure, who has been an arch critic of former coup leader, former military Captain, Yahya JammehYahya Jammeh. But Peters is likely to be released on bail Monday, sources further told Freedom Newspaper.

The opposition leader of the UDP, human rights lawyer, Ousainou Darboe, is reported to have made a scathing attack on the deteriorating human rights situation in the West African nation. Yahya Jammeh is under mounting condemnation for allegedly threatening, late last month, to exterminate human right defenders who sought to ‘‘destabilize’’ a country he has ruled with iron feast since he seized power from a democratically elected government in 1994, a rule that has been characterised by alleged counter coups, tortures, killings, disappearances and forceful exiles of opportunists.