By Omar Bah
The National Human Rights Commission has written to President Adama Barrow and the Justice Minister Dawda Jallow raising concerns over the president’s comments against UDP leader Ousainu Darboe, The Standard has been reliably informed.
President Barrow is widely condemned for saying that he intends to stay in power until Mr Darboe dies, with many urging him to retract the comments.
A source familiar with the issue told The Standard: “I can authoritatively confirm to you that the NHRC has written to both President Barrow and Minister Jallow over the issue.”
When contacted for comments, the NHRC chairman Emmanuel Joof said: “We deliberately did not issue a press statement because we did not want to be drawn into the political point-scoring and bantering between political party supporters.
NHRC felt it was better to engage H.E directly rather than get involved in the political ping pong.”
Joof added: “As a state institution with an advisory role to the government on all matters relating to human rights and tasked with bringing back a culture of human rights and rule of law, we have raised our concerns about the statements made (and we stated exactly what our concerns were), and for H.E to tone down on statements and rhetoric that may be divisive, or create disunity. We also urge all political leaders, religious leaders and opinion leaders to do the same. We also emphasised the importance of institutionalising and strengthening the National Consultative Dialogue H.E started in February. We have also engaged the IPC to impose on their leadership and party members to abide by the Janjanbureh Peace Accord which was signed by all the political parties and directs all political parties and their members to avoid making speeches and statements which are hate speeches, misinformation and disinformation and has the potential of causing incitement to violence, division, disaffection and ill will within our communities.”
