Dear editor,
The Gambia Police should release the Bakau youths immediately and drop all trumped up charges levelled against them. They are charged with the same trumped up charges, that they the police had charged: Faraba Youths, 3 Years Jotna leaders, Busumbala youths, Sanyang youths, etc. It seems every time Gambians protest in The Gambia, the police would follow it up with trumped up charges, simply to instil fear in the people in order to deter them from exercising their constitutional rights to peaceful protest in the country.
It’s an abuse of police prosecutorial powers, which they should have never been accorded with. It’s further wrong, cruel and dictatorial.
How can anyone be held responsible for the disturbances that happened in Bakau, other than the murderer, who cruelly murdered and mutilated an innocent young native of Bakau and the insensitive police, who brought such a monster to the local police station of Bakau for detention?
If they the police are mindful enough to grant permit to Gambians, when they request to stage a peaceful protest, Gambians would have learned to protest peacefully. But each time Gambians protest, just like under the dictatorship of Yahya Jammeh, the police response is always brute force and later trumped up charges just to waste the time of their citizens in detention and courts.
Such violence response always invite violence from Gambians and until the police learned how to engage Gambians in a peaceful protest, there will be no peaceful protest in this country and whenever there is a protest in the country, it would always certainly be violent. None should be blamed for this than the IGP and his officers.
Can you imagine sending the monster murderer of Omar Sonko to the same remand wing of Mile 2 prison with the protesters, who protested against his unlawful killing.
Furthermore, how can anyone hold 25 people responsible for the actions of a thousand people in Bakau and they claimed to be seeking justice? No! Its not justice but selective justice and it is wrong.
Let them release the Bakau youths immediately and engage the community of Bakau in dialogue and reassure them that all efforts will be taken to ensure that their loved one, Omar Sonko, is not murdered in vain and that justice will be served in his case.
They should refrain from attempts to punish a community that is already grieving!!! Stop the cruelty, Gambia Police Force!!!
Yanks Dabo
