Amnesty International today calls on the Gambian government to immediately charge or release all former government officials detained during a wave of arrests over the past week.
According to Amnesty “The Gambian Constitution stipulates that people should be charged within 72 hours of arrest.”

Erwin van der Borght, Amnesty International’s Africa Programme Director express his concern that the arrests and detentions without trial are indicating a total disregard of human rights.

Amnesty International has documented many cases where people have been arrested and held without charge, often with no access to their families or lawyers.
The organisation has repeatedly called on Gambian authorities to end the arbitrary arrests and detention of perceived and real opponents of the government that have intensified since the alleged failed coup attempt in March 2006.

In a report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council February this year, the Gambian government itself pointed out that the country’s Constitution protects citizens from arbitrary arrests and detention, also stating that the provision in the Constitution which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment is non-derogatory.

The many people detained without charge and the many claims of torture”send a very different message,” said Erwin van der Borght. “It is high time for the government to follow its own Constitution and fulfil its human rights obligations. Those arrested should either be charged with a recognizable criminal offence or released.”