Jailed Gambians pay price for perceived disloyalty

BANJUL, Gambia: As The Gambia sees a surge in support for the opposition ahead of presidential polls days away, a spate of arrests in the run-up has shown the cost of dissent.

President Yahya Jammeh seized power in a 1994 coup and has targeted opponents and several of his own ministers, while surviving multiple attempts to remove him from power.

In the months prior to the December 1 vote, a former minister, an ex-ruling party MP and two journalists with the state broadcaster are among those who have been detained, often without a clear reason.

Jainaba Bah said she still doesn´t know why her husband, former junior foreign affairs minister Mamadou Sajo Jallow, has been in custody since early September and denied access to a lawyer.

"My personal view is that he has been arrested because I have declared my support for the UDP (opposition party)," she told AFP by phone on Saturday from Sweden. Her husband, a longtime ambassador to the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was taken away by the security services on September 2 after his house was burgled and documents taken.

But his family has been told he cannot be released until he produces a passport and collects signatures from various officials, tough conditions to meet while he is behind bars and his wife has fled to Sweden.

"I can´t sleep," Bah said, describing the "whole range of things that might be possible from the stories I have heard about," referring to alleged abuses committed in The Gambia´s notorious prisons.