Principled and veteran journalist, and the first pick for information minister in Adama Barrow’s cabinet earlier, Hon. D.A Jawo has described the shutting down of media houses as well as arrests of local journalists in The Gambia as “indeed very disappointing.”
The former cabinet minister was speaking to forGambia radio in an exclusive interview Monday, February 10th 2020 in the wake of closings of Brikama’s Home Digital FM and Tallinding’s King FM respectively.
The closings came on the edge of 3YRS Jotna’s second permit-granted protest. International media, Al Jazeera specifically, was not permitted accreditation by the paranoid Barrow government to cover the march.
“When there was this change of regime, everybody had hopes that we have finally seen the end of the road as far as freedom of the press was concerned, Jawo commenced.
“We thought that probably we would never get back to those dark days of the Jammeh regime. And everything was going fine until when we had this 3YRS Jotna demonstration. During that demonstration, they went and shut down two radio stations and arrested four journalists. Definitely it was a big disappointment. We thought that we had definitely passed that stage,” Jawo laments.
The respected and widely known veteran mentioned that the media houses were still shut down by the authorities as our interview progressed.
He said Pa Modou Bojang and Jibou Jallow, runners of the closed radios were on a talk show Sunday where they both mentioned that they were on bail and had to be reporting to the police this morning, Monday February 10th 2020, “And their radio stations remained shut and security forces are occupying their premises. So, it is an unfortunate situation, definitely,” Jawo continued.
Reminded of the current TRRC which should serve as a deterrent against impunity for many Gambians, but authorities in particular, Mr. Jawo concurred with the perspective, adding that he in fact was Ebrima Sillah’s predecessor who handed over to him as new information minister.
He stated he could understand how difficult things might be right now for Ebrima Sillah because he [ Jawo] too was in his shoes earlier. Redirected that no media house was shut under his tenure or journalists harassed and arrested, Jawo, in a professionally-woven response replied that situations such as the 3YRS Jotna protests were not occurring during his time as cabinet minister.
Nonetheless, he agreed that a bad history does trail any leader under whose tenure it occurs, with a special reference to the on-going TRRC hearing in the country. Jawo had worked with and known both the current information minister, Sillah, and government spokesperson Sankareh.
As far as working under Barrow as minister and the president being accessible goes, Jawo stated Barrow is more accessible than Jammeh albeit some of his advisers are quite inexperienced and rookie.
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