'It's scary' – Gambian lecturer's arrest sparks repression fears

When students from the University of the Gambia heard that their political science lecturer had been arrested, they mobilised. By evening, 50 of them, along with the president of the students’ union, were protesting outside police headquarters in Banjul. By morning, hundreds more had arrived.

Inside the building, police who a few hours before had been accusing Ismaila Ceesay of jeopardising national security, were suddenly begging him to leave, dropping the charges of incitement to violence for commenting to a newspaper that the government needed to do more to win the army’s trust.

The students’ arrival had scared them.

“I told them that I am not going until you tell me why you charged me and you publicly apologise to me,” Ceesay said. “They pleaded with me to go home.”

Eventually, sensing the mood outside the building, he agreed to leave and was welcomed by a triumphant crowd, fists in the air.

In Yahya Jammeh’s Gambia, the arrest, interrogation and intimidation of a political science lecturer would barely have raised an eyebrow. But Jammeh has been gone for a year, ousted last January after a jubilant election followed by a tense political impasse.

Police sources who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Guardian that they had been instructed to arrest Ceesay by the government of Adama Barrow, who won the 2016 election on a promise of change from the repression and human rights violations that marked his predecessor’s rule.

Ceesay said his arrest had been a harrowing experience and that he was convinced it was politically motivated.

He said an agent from the office of the president came to question him, and he added: “All that they were telling me during my interrogation and detention was that we were waiting for directives from above. What directive? Of course it is from OP [the office of the president].”

Barrow’s information minister, Demba Ali Jawo, said that the arrest had “nothing to do with the office of the president”, but was at the behest of the police. Ceesay’s questioning “wasn’t politically motivated,” Jawo said, and police merely wanted information from him after his comments.

But Madi Jobarteh, deputy executive director of the Association of NGOs, said the development was “very frightening”.

“There’s a huge risk of the Gambia sliding back into dictatorship,” he said. “One year on, all the laws that infringe on civil liberties are still in place, even though the president promised to repeal all laws violating fundamental rights and freedoms.”

Other activists agreed. “This is censorship,” said Alieu Bah from #OccupyWestfield, a movement that recently planned a protest but was stopped by the police. “It is scary. It is a calculated move. Dictatorship is not just about people disappearing. These people are using the laws to promote dictatorship.”

Ceesay said they had made a mistake in singling him out. “They tried to intimidate me. But they have got the wrong man,” he said.

“This is how Jammeh started. We were in dictatorship for 22 years. We fought to free ourselves. We thought this is the new Gambia, that there will be freedom of speech. But they are setting a very bad precedent.”