Sidiq Asemota |
NEW YORK,
July 12, 2012/African Press Organization (APO)/ — A Gambian judge
ordered the arrest of a journalist Tuesday on contempt of court charges,
the third instance of a journalist being detained on such charges in as
many weeks, according to local journalists.
Police
arrested Sidiq Asemota, the legal affairs correspondent of the
pro-government Daily Observer, while he was on assignment at the High
Court in Banjul, the capital, his employer reported. Judge Emmanuel Nkea
of the Special Criminal Court had issued an arrest warrant for Asemota
on Friday, news reports said.
Asemota
told Pa Malick Faye, the managing editor of the Daily Observer, over the
phone that security agents were arresting him because of his June 9
story headlined “Two sentenced for forgery,” the newspaper reported.
The
story was about two Gambian citizens who Nkea had convicted of
“economic crime and forgery of official documents.” Faye said that no
complaint had been lodged about the story and that he was unaware of the
cause of the arrest, according to the paper.
Asemota is
being held at Mile 2 State Central Prison outside Banjul, according to
the Observer. He is due to appear in court on July 13, reports said.
“It’s
disturbing to see yet another instance of a Gambian judge summarily
locking up a reporter in response to news coverage of court
proceedings,” said CPJ Africa Advocacy Coordinator Mohamed Keita from
New York. “Sidiq Asemota should be immediately released, and Gambian
judicial officials should review these recent contempt charges with an
eye toward ending this practice.”
Two other
journalists have been remanded to prison custody on the orders of court
officials in the past three weeks, according to CPJ research. One of
them, Lamin Njie, was arrested on Nkea’s orders as well.
On June 22,
Njie, the deputy editor-in-chief of The Daily News, was arrested on
contempt of court accusations for incorrectly reporting that the judge
had denied bail to officials accused of tax-related offenses, news
reports said. He was released without charge on June 25, the reports
said.
On June 20,
Taiwo Ade Alagbe, a lower court magistrate in Banjul, ordered the
arrest of Abdulhamid Adiamoh, a Nigerian journalist and the managing
editor of Today newspaper, news reports said. The journalist was
detained in prison for more than a week, beyond the legal limit, before
being convicted in connection with an article that was critical of a
cross-examination in the criminal trial of a former university lecturer.
Adiamoh was ordered to pay a fine of 100,000 dalasi (US$3,100) or serve
six months in jail with hard labor.
SOURCE
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
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