Gambia: Banned Biweekly's Reporter Gets to Choose Between a Year in Prison or Heavy Fine

press release

Reporters Without Borders energetically condemns the sentence of a year in prison or "optional" fine of 1,850 dollars (1,375 euros) which a magistrate's court in the town of Kanifing today imposed on reporter Lamin Fatty for getting facts wrong in a story for the now banned, privately-owned biweekly The Independent.

"Fatty was already held illegally for two months in this case," the press freedom organisation said. "His publisher and his editor were also held for several weeks in a completely illegal fashion. Pay up or be imprisoned, this is the threat that President Yahya Jammeh now wants to hold over his country's press."

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