Folks,

Freedom of Expression is ForbiddenHereBy FodaySamateh“Six armed men wearing masks came tothe printing works at 2:00 a.m., fired shots into the air, and ordered theemployees to lie on the ground. One of them then set fire to the new press…completelydestroying it.” The police didn’tinvestigate the crime much less arrest the suspects, to one’ssurprise.The incident above sums up Alagi YorroJallow’sDelayed Democracy: How Press Freedom Collapsedin The Gambia. The author was a winner ofprestigious awards for excellence in journalism, and earned the unenviabledistinction of being arrested over a dozen times for his hard-nosed reporting.He was in the main a co-proprietor and the managing editor of the Independentnewspaper, and fought with Deyda Hydara against draconian media laws in thecountry. Forced by death threats into exile in the United States, he studied atKennedy School of Government at Harvard University, became a research fellow atthe National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, and is currently a Fulbrightscholar teaching at a Bangkok university in Thailand. Jallow’sbook addresses freedom of expression as the cardinal of all freedoms for bothjournalism and the nation, and gives a comprehensive account of Yahya Jammeh’sdespotic response to the idea as well as its application. It also provides ahistorical overview of media in The Gambia dating back to pre-colonial times,and a running commentary on the troubled story of press freedom in Africa. Thecolonial laws about the press, Jallow points outs, were decidedly repressive.The British Crown didn’t want thelegitimacy of its rule challenged, and so handed down harsh libel, sedition,and other restrictive laws from London to deny their subjects the freedoms andrights to write and speak against colonialism in favor of self-rule.Independence was supposed to change all that, except that it didn’tit. Jawara and his ministers, like governments everywhere, weren’treceptive to the media casting them in a bad light. So they left the oppressivelaws in the books and added some of their own.Jallow’sverdict on Jawara’s thirty years inpower is magisterial and unforgiving. The most crucial aspects of democracy, heunderscores, were instituted over time and not faithfully. Corruption,impunity, and abuse of the national interest and assets couldn’tbe checked, because the system had become too entrenched to dismantle, and itdisenfranchised those who should have been empowered to reign it in. The cronystate became “too massive, too intimidating, and toopowerful,” and thereforerendered the Constitution, the first and final word on the rule of law,dormant. The Parliament had been too enchanted with power to discharge itsresponsibilities. The fledgeling private media, the only institution outsidethe direct control of the corrupt and corrupting system, had been shoved aside.A system where the ruling party controlled all the levers of power forself-perpetuation rather than carrying out the nation’sbusiness was bound to produce undesirable elements like Yahya Jammeh as itsinheritor. The coup that brought Yahya Jammeh topower in 1994 coincided with the establishment of several private mediaoutlets. The country’s first daily, the DailyObserver, hit the newsstands about only two years earlier. The Point,a biweekly at the time, was just about three years old. And more papers wouldcome out since, including the New Citizen and the Independent.The lack of journalistic scrutiny Jawara had largely enjoyed wouldn’tbe true for the man who seized power on the claim to eradicate “rampantcorruption” andinstitutionalize “accountability,transparency and probity.” Hewould perceive in the media nothing but mortal enemies. His very first decreesuspended the 1970 Constitution, and invalidated every other law that stood contraryto any of his decrees, even the ones that were yet to be conceived and written,leaving the rights and freedoms of every Gambian at the mercy of his diktats.So much for a self-imposed liberator!We hardly knew his name when it becameclear that the usurper had a chronic condition of speaking from both sides ofhis mouth. The man who claimed to welcome criticisms of his junta’swrongs would turn out to be as intolerant and vindictive of dissent as anydespot that ever wielded power in Africa. He issued Decree No. 4 outlawing allpolitical parties, political assembly, political associations, politicalexpressions, political newspapers, and political anything free people in freecountries take for granted. Then he prosecuted Halifa Sallah and Sidia Jattafor publishing Foroyaa as an organ of a political party even though thepaper fulfilled every criteria required for a newspaper under the law. And for a man who professed that hedidn’thate the press, he would never let up foaming and frothing at the mouth againstthe media. Just mere months in power, Jallow reminds us, Yahya Jammeh railed atthe press thus: “The enemies ofAfrican progress, the illegitimate sons of this country disguise themselves inthe form of journalists, in the form of freedom fighters, in the form of humanrights activists, but they are all illegitimate sons of Africa…Youcan send them into the streets begging when you don’t buy their newspapers…Don’t allow the mosquito to suck yourblood…Theytalk about Human Rights, an issue they don’t even understand. And I will tell youwhat Human Rights stand for…a fallacy that isnonexistent anywhere in this world; it is a Western machination to manipulateAfrica…Ifyou want to be a donkey, we will treat you like a double donkey. If you want tobe a human being, we will treat you like a human being. There is no compromise!”He barely finished making that direwarning when he deported the Liberian refugee Kenneth Best, the proprietor andeditor of the Daily Observer, back to the war-torn country,purportedly for immigration violations. The private media houses, Jallowrecalls, were “subjected to frequent visits by taxinspectors, custom and immigration authority, and the National IntelligenceAgency (NIA), all looking for illegal immigrants. At one time, immigrationpersonnel were regularly stationed at the gate of the Daily Observer,checking the credentials of anyone entering or leaving. As a result, manynon-Gambian journalists were deported or simply left the country.”In the early part of 1996, theelection year to civilian rule, Yahya Jammeh arrested the editors and publishers of all four private newspapers onthe spurious claim that they violated the colonial-era Newspaper Act of 1944 bynot submitting the publishing information of their papers on annual basis. Theinformation in question could always be found printed in the back pages ofevery edition of the respective newspapers. The eight editors and publishers ofthe Daily Observer, Foroyaa, the New Citizen,and the Point pleaded not guilty and were released on a bond of onethousand (1,000) dalasi each. When the despot didn’thave the case he had hoped, he promulgated new decrees to intimidate the media.The colonial-era Newspaper Act of1944, which stipulated the terms of registration, printing and publication ofprivate newspapers, remained almost unchanged until the coup. Having alreadytoughened the conditions, he upped the ante with Decree No. 70 by increasingthe penalty for non-compliance with the requirements for the bond under the Actfrom a fine of one thousand (1,000) dalasis to one hundred thousand (100,000)dalasi. Twelve days later, he issued Decree No. 71 to revoke all existing bondsand prohibit the publication of all private newspapers until they posted newbonds of one hundred thousand (100,000) dalasi within two weeks. Despite turning himself into acivilian ruler through a very dubious election process, Yahya Jammeh’sabhorrence for the media has never mollified. The harassment and intimidationescalated in the form of arrests, interrogations, detentions, deportations, and torture toscare journalists away from publishing articles he considered“inaccurate”or“sensitive”to national security. He vowed on one of numerous occasions that, “Anybodybent on disturbing the peace and stability of the nation would be buried sixfeet deep.” The clampdown wasn’tconfined to the newspapers. Take, for instance, the case of Citizen FM Radiofounded in 1996 by the veteran journalist Baboucarr Gaye. It became the mostpopular station in the country for being the only private radio that generatedits own news, and for airing major stories in the newspapers in both Englishand the local languages. Yahya Jammeh might not so much mind that few educatedpeople were reading the private newspapers, Jallow observes, but when thosepapers were translated on air into the local languages to the general public,the station was bound to stir his fury. After the proprietor defied hisdemands to end the program, Mr. Gaye and his staff became frequent targets ofarrests and harassments by the National Intelligence Agency. Then, a group ofarmed soldiers stormed the station and shut it down under the pretext that Mr.Gaye hadn’t paid his operational license fee forthat year. He was, lo and behold, charged under the colonial-era Telegraph Actof 1913 for operating a radio station without license. At the end of theprotected misdemeanor trial, he was fined three hundred (300) dalasi andordered to forfeit his broadcasting equipment to the state. Mr. Gaye appealedthe ruling. His victory in the High Court wouldprove to be temporary. On the night of the 2001 presidential election, thestation hosted a live coverage with a team of reporters filing in results fromvarious counting centers, in defiance of the Interior Minister’swarning to the media not to broadcast or publish any results ahead of theofficial declaration by the Chairman of the electoral commission. The ministerordered the police to take the station off the air. Mr. Gaye was back on theair again but not for long. The National Intelligence Agency arrested anddetained him, and sent his staff home on the claim of some tax arrears. Evenafter he settled all outstanding taxes, the station was never allowed to resumebroadcasting.Another private radio station wasgiven a taste of the despot’s treatment. RadioOne FM used to host a popular program called “SundayNews Hour” with a panel ofjournalists to discuss the issues of the day. One night in 2001, a group ofmasked arsonists came to burn it down. The proprietor, George Christensen,happened to be present and fought them off at great personal risk. Though hesaved his station from getting set ablaze, he sustained burned injuries duringthe scuffle and had to be admitted to the hospital. And few months prior, AlieuBah, a journalist at the station, had received a threatening letter to quitbefore he would be visited with dire consequences. When he defied the threat,his house was torched, and he and his wife and child narrowly escaped the fire,but not without injuries. The police as usual promised thorough investigation,but never apprehended anyone. Yahya Jammeh ramped up the legalhurdles to further curtail freedom of expression and the press. At hisprodding, his lapdog National Assembly passed a Media Commission bill thatwould make Stalin blushed. The 1997 Constitution mandated “theestablishment of a National Media Commission to establish a code of conduct forthe media of mass communication and information and to ensure the impartiality,independence and professionalism of the media which is necessary in ademocratic society.” Thisis one of the many flaws in the Constitution on the part of its framers. Nogovernment should ever be given an ounce more of power than necessary to keepthe people safe and free. Governments are notorious for using  any powers at their disposal, and even moreso for abusing those powers to strengthen their own hold on power. To state the obvious, it’snot the responsibility of governments to ensure the “impartiality,independence and professionalism”ofthe private media. When they are entrusted to do so, you get the kind of MediaCommission Act the likes of Yahya Jammeh could only dream of enforcing. Farfrom being modeled on the US Federal Communications Commission, which it mustbe noted isn’t a body to protect press freedom butrather to regulate the media, the National Media Commission was empowered todecree a code of conduct for the private media, set standards for quality andcontent, and issue rulings on complaints against journalists and mediaorganizations. The Commission was given further powers to basically supplantthe courts. Private media organizationsas well as individual journalistswould be required to register with the Commission for annual licenses, and theCommission would have extrajudicial authority to revoke those licenses, imposefines, issue arrest warrantsfor journalists, and even sendthem to prison. If the media organizations andjournalists failed to obtain the annual license, they must be penalized withsevere fines or be suspended: three months for media organizations, and ninemonths for journalists. The Commission also reserved the power to putjournalists behind bars for contempt for up to six months. If the regime or any of its bureaucraticbranches so much as alleged in a complaint that a journalist or mediaorganization published an official information without authorization or incontravention of the colonial-era Official Secrets Act of 1922, the Commissionmust compel the journalist or media organization to disclose the source of thatinformation. If the journalist or media organization refused to do so, theCommission must fine, suspend or revoke the license of the journalist or themedia organization, imprison the journalist, or impose any combination of thesepunitive measures. Rightly considering the Act anautocratic encroachment on their constitutional freedoms, the media stagedprotests for the National Assembly to repeal the Act, and filed lawsuits forthe Courts to strike it down as unconstitutional. The Gambia Press Union andtwo managing editors, Deyda Hydara of the Point and (the author) AlagiYorro Jallow of the Independent, were joined by the president of thePress Union Demba A. Jawo and The Gambia News and Reportpublisher Suwaebou Conateh as the plaintiffs. About that time, Yahya Jammeh had aninterview with the now pro-regime Daily Observer and referred tothe media as a “dead and rottenhorse.”Heaccused them of trying to appeal to the international community by reportinglies about him and criticizing his regime. He further lashed out at them forgiving more coverage to his opposition, even though he and his officials made asecond nature out of declining interview requests, and denying access toofficial information. When asked in another interview if he had any plans topay a visit to the private media houses, the despot didn’tdisappoint with a characteristic scoff: “Youdo not need to go to the toilet to know that it stinks.”While the lawsuit against the MediaCommission Act was winding through  theSupreme Court, Yahya Jammeh doubled down on his acerbic screeds and doomsdaywarnings against the media. Then in October 2003, the Independent officewas attacked by four men who climbed over the perimeter wall, hit the securityguard unconscious with an iron bar, and set the newsroom on fire. In January2004, the paper’s managingdirector, Alagi Yorro Jallow, received a letter from the “GreenBoys,”YahyaJammeh’sparamilitary-style vigilantes, threatening to kill him and destroy the paperfor its coverage of the trial of Baba Jobe, who, ironically, as the despot’sconfidant and surrogate, had been instrumental in the formation of thesemi-official brigade of bandits. These were grave threats, especially after BabaJobe’slawyer, Ousman Sillah, was shot in the head in an apparent attempted murder forno other plausible motive than the most obvious: the lawyer might have learnedtoo much from his client about the despot’scriminal chicaneries. In May, Yahya Jammeh warned journalists to “eitherregister with the Commission or go to hell…Infact, the deadline [for registration] should not have been extended. But yougive the fool a long rope to hang himself.”Again, these were not empty threats.As it turned out, 2004 would be the most consequential year for the media inThe Gambia. In April, the Independent was attacked again by maskedassailants who held up the night crew at gun point and set the new printingpress on fire. In July, the despot was on television denouncing journalists forbeing “benton character assassination of people,”andclaiming that his regime had “provided too muchfreedom of expression and media rights.”Hegave the journalists an ultimatum to abide by his terms or leave the country.As if all that wasn’t enough, the nextday he put them on notice anew with a familiar refrain:“Iknow there are opposition journalists among you but whoever misquotes me I willdeal with you.” That same month, Demba A. Jawo, thepresident of the Press Union, got an anonymous threatening fax to cease anddesist from writing critical materials about the regime. On the heels of thatincident, arsonists set on fire the house of BBC stringer Ebrima Sillah, whobarely escaped with his life.  When the Supreme Court was set to rulethe Media Commission Act unconstitutional, Yahya Jammeh repealed his owndraconian law through the National Assembly. No, the despot didn’tjust discover his inner libertarian streak; he was only shifting gears. Thatsame day, the National Assembly passed the Newspaper (Amendment) Act of 2004.During the military rule, Decrees No. 70 & 71 increased the bond under thecolonial-era Newspaper Act of 1944 from one thousand (1000) dalasi to onehundred thousand (100,000) dalasi. This Amendment raised that sum to fivehundred thousand (500,000) dalasi for anyone who wished to exercise theirconstitutional right to operate a newspaper. The National Assembly passed alsothe Criminal Code (Amendment) Act of 2004 to further restrict free speech. Itcategorized for the first time the publication of a “false”statementas a criminal offense. A first-time offender must serve six months minimum inprison without the option of a fine, and a second-time offender must do threeyears. The maximum fine under Decrees No. 70 & 71 wasfifty-thousand (50,000) dalasi. Under the amended law, fifty-thousand (50,000)became the minimum fine and two hundred and fifty-thousand (250,000) themaximum. Then came the most fateful event ofthe fateful year on the night of December 16, 2004, when Deyda Hydara, themanaging editor of the Point, doyen of the press and fierce critic ofthe despot, was gunned down while he was driving from work. The assassinationwas a shocking game changer for the press as well as the entire nation. IfDeyda could be murdered in cold blood, no one felt safe anymore. Six monthsafter the shooting, the regime published a report of their “investigation”blamingthe victim for the heinous crime. In a dastardly attempt to assassinate Deyda’scharacter as well, they slandered him as a “serialwomanizer,” whose immorallifestyle provoked his own death. For Jallow, Deyda’sassassination compelled him into a soul-searching about carrying on being ajournalist in The Gambia. He had been arrested over a dozen times in six years.Once for reporting a prison hunger strike, and the other for writing about thedespot buying a five-star hotel. During one of the arrests for refusing todisclose the source of his news story, he was stripped naked, and locked upincommunicado in a mosquito-infested and urine-stanched cell for forty-eighthours without access to a lawyer or family members. He contracted pneumonia andmalaria as a result. The regime had challenged the legality of his newspaperand even questioned his citizenship as a Gambian along with his co-proprietorBaba Galleh Jallow. They had to endure the indignity of providing the necessarydocuments to immigration officials to prove that they were lawful citizens,lest they be deported from their own country to a foreign one. And yes, he hadreceived more than his fair share of death threats. But those past ordeals paled incomparison to the impact the shooting of Deyda had on him. It didn’thelp that reliable sources within the Army and other branches of the regime hadwarned him that he was a target for assassination. One source confided in himthat he would have also been shot like Deyda had he been in the country, andnot attending a media conference in the United States. Out of fear of losinghim, his family insisted that there was only one choice to make. He wasinclined to go back to being the managing director and publisher of the Independentto deny the regime a win over truth and openness, but the threats and themounting pressures forced him to remain in the US.Despite the international outrageabout Deyda’s assassination, the despot’sintolerance for the press continued to increase with time. The Criminal CodeAct was again amended in 2005 purposely to target the press and furthersuppress it from exercising its role to report the news and inform the public.The fine for “false publication”becamea minimum of fifty-thousand (50,000) dalasi and a maximum of two hundred andfifty-thousand (250,000) dalasi. And defaulting on the fine would result in oneyear minimum in prison. The colonial-era laws on defamation, libel and seditionunder the Criminal Code Act were also amended to mete out similarlydisproportionate sentences. Other laws that were amended as well included theOfficial Secrets Act of 1922 enacted by the British to punish unauthorizeddisclosure of official documents. The fine for leaking such documents wasincreased from one thousand (1000) dalasi to two hundred and fifty (250,000)dalasi, and the jail term from six months to 15 years to life. A number of journalists have beencharged under this Act. A case in point was Lamin Fatty of the Independent.He erroneously included the name of a former minister in a report of allegedcoup plotters who had been arrested in 2006. In spite of the paper’sprofuse apology to the former minister, the regime arrested Fatty and held himincommunicado for two months. He was then charged under the Criminal Code forpublishing “false news.”Aftera protracted trial due to frequent and frivolous adjournments, he was “found”guiltyas charged and ordered to pay the minimum fine of fifty-thousand (50,000)dalasi or serve a year in prison. He was driven to prison, and was onlyreleased after the Press Union came up with the money. Another victim of the Criminal Code inits application to the press was Fatou Jaw Manneh. She traveled from the UnitedStates to pay her respects to her father when the despot’ssecret police abducted her at the airport. After holding her for a week, theycharged her with sedition and giving false information to endanger nationalsecurity for criticizing the regime on the internet. She was also “found”guiltyand ordered to pay the maximum fine of two hundred and fifty-thousand (250,000)dalasi or spend four years in prison. Thanks to her family and friends, and thePress Union, she was able to avoid prison. And another outrageous violation andviolence against press freedom was the disappearance and presumed murder ofChief Ebrima Manneh, a reporter with the pro-regime Daily Observer,after his secret arrest by the regime. While Jallow was settling in the US,his paper continued to face harassments back in The Gambia. In March 2006, thepolice burst in, arrested the staff and sealed of the office without giving somuch as a reason. After brief questioning, two editors and a reporter were heldincommunicado, and the rest of the staff were sent home. Three weeks later, thetwo editors, Musa Saidykhan and Madi Ceesay, were released without charges. Theregime informed the paper that the ban had been lifted and it could resumepublication. But when the staff returned to work, the police prevented themfrom entering the office. The Independent had since been closed downwith security forces stationed at the building. When the despot was asked at a pressconference about allegations that his regime was responsible for theassassination of Deyda Hydara, he responded: “Ido not believe in killing people. I believe in locking you up for the rest ofyour life. Then maybe, at some point, we will say, ‘Ohhe is too old to be fed by the state,’ and we release him and let him becomedestitute. Then everyone will learn a lesson from him.”Respondingto questions about his routine arrests of journalists and unjustified closingdown of the Independent, he asserted: “Letme tell you one thing. The whole world can go to hell. If I want to ban anynewspaper, I will, with good reasons. This is Africa and this is the Gambia, acountry where we have very strong African moral values. If you write, ‘YahyaJammeh is a thief,’ you should beready to prove it in a court of law. If that constitutes lack of press freedom,I don’t care.”In 2009, he arrested six journalistsafter they issued a statement denouncing him for being dismissive once again ofthe assassination of Deyda Hydara, and his failure to conduct a thoroughinvestigation to bring the killers to justice. The six journalists were “found”guiltyon six counts, including defamation and seditious publication. They weresentenced to four years imprisonment and fined two hundred and fifty-thousand(250,000) dalasi. After loud chorus of international outcry, the despot decidedto “pardon”them.That same year, Mr. Abdul Hamid Adiamoh of Today newspaper was alsoarrested on charges of sedition for publishing a photo of a boy scavengingthrough a pile of trash.The incessant measures against thepress has made Yahya Jammeh infamous in all the circles that stand for pressfreedom. The Committee to Protect Journalists put The Gambia on its list of the ten worst violators of press freedom.The International Freedom of Expression Exchange considered The Gambia one ofAfrica’sworst places to be a journalist. The Ghana-based Media Foundation for WestAfrica compiled a sixty-three-page dossier on the despot’sabuses of press freedom. And Jallow lists about forty journalists who had goneinto exile out of fear for their lives or security, and gives a rundown of over120 instances the regime violated press freedom through arrests, detentions,prosecutions, assaults, torture, deportations, arson attacks, exorbitant fines,imprisonments, newspaper and radio station closures, and murder. These figureswould be too bleak for any country, especially a tiny one like The Gambia. By Jallow’sassessment, Yahya Jammeh’s iniquitous recordon press freedom rivaled the likes of North Korea, where rigid state-controlled“televisionand radio news broadcasts are dominated by flattering reports of the activitiesof the leader…along with patriotic storiesemphasizing national unity.” TheGambia’spolitical culture, he writes, has taken the turn for the worse with the coup,due to Yahya Jammeh’s strongmanmentality that remained hardened even after he shed his military uniform forflowing gowns to assume the appearance of a civilian leader. The change frommilitary ruler to an elected head of state was distinction in style only,without any difference in substance. His attitude toward governance, hismindset about his role and duty, and his total disregard for the rule of law orthe constitutional rights and freedoms of the people remain “encased”inthe thinking of a power-crazed, absolute authoritarian. Under the despot’srule, Jallow expounds, dissent is just another word for sabotage, and publicdebate must therefore be stifled. All must obey him as the leader, and nonemust complain about his commands. Popular participation and democraticpluralism are seditious conspiracies. “Thisis why political plurality is currently alien to the new culture that hasemerged from a nation that had the true potential to march on to greater things—byembracing democracy and freedom of the fourth estate as tools for development,stronger stability, and a sense of purpose, but instead denied themselves theopportunities of advancing in a new world, in a new Africa, by waylaying anddelaying all that was good and possible.”Deyda Hydara’sassassination, Jallow points out numerous times, brought a climate of fear inthe country that, understandably, forced many journalists into exile or madethem much more cautious to exercise self-censorship, but which regrettably ledto fewer voices to be critical of the regime. Families of journalists andprivate media workers, even the families of those who operate the printingpresses, pressured their loved ones to refrain from open criticism of theregime and to look for other employments. Any association with the privatemedia has become a dangerous thing.In that crude and odious sense, thedespot might as well bellow and crow that his mission had been accomplished.Silencing the media, Jallow indicates, is a strategic means to a far moreconsequential end. To ensure that opinions are not aired, questions are notasked, and other ideas do not compete with the despot’s,the channels of mass communication must be shut down. “Killingthe messenger will certainly ensure that the message is not delivered. Theoverall objective of the exercise to silence the media is to prohibit freespeech by dismantling the amplifiers of its very basic apparatus.”After the suppression of free speech, the emasculation of the military, and thecoercion of the civil service into a partisan puppet, the despot has emerged asthe state; and the state, the despot. He fulfilled what Jallow calls hegemonicdisposition to power. The main body of the book started asan academic research in fulfillment of Jallow’sMasters Degree at Harvard. He conducted further research on it as a fellow atthe National Endowment for Democracy. Then he worked on it again when hedecided to publish it. I should have mentioned from the beginning that helocated his theme, and constructed his arguments and analyses on theEnlightenment and Empiricist thinking on the definition and function of freedomof expression. And since the research was academic, the writing conformed to  the convention, including the use of ameasured, dispassionate voice. To hazard a guess, that mode of presentationinfluenced the choosing of the title, “DelayedDemocracy.” A lessmild-mannered writer might find it more apt to call the reality conveyed in thebook, “AbortedDemocracy.”The supplementary part of the book iswhere we fully encounter Jallow on his own terms. Not the Harvard student or aWashington think tank fellow, but the man and the writer at liberty fromacademic strictures. Whether he was writing an op-ed piece in the Independentand other platforms, addressing a conference inNairobi, Edinburgh, New York City, Boston or accepting an award for courageousjournalists in Toronto, we get acquainted with the measure of his mind and thedepth of his thoughts on the theory and reality of freedom of expression in TheGambia and Africa as a whole. We see the hopeful idealist, the desperatepragmatic and the stubborn advocate at various moments, and sometimes all atonce. There’s a moving loftiness even in his grimlament in the Independent in 2003: “Today,the principal weapon is not arbitrary detentions and violent physical attackson journalists and their press houses. More and more the courts have beencoerced into providing the gags and handcuffs.”He is at his most philosophical in hiswritings and speeches when he ponders thus: “Isit possible to act courageously as a journalist in The Gambia today? It is truethat our experiences—with the murder ofour brave friend, Deyda Hydara, the torching of the Independent newspaper’s printing press, the imprisonment andtorture and threats that reach us and do not abate—havetaught us that there are limits to what we and our family members are able toendure, especially when we are not able to do the work we know is ours to do.As years of intimidation build, stress finds less and less relief, as everypossible effort is made to push on and report and publish is exhausted.Nevertheless, when time and time again those efforts are foiled by governmentintervention, with personal safety threatened, the courage to seek another way,from another place, can become the force of change.”I must push back on the thrust of his2004 article “No Longer a Beacon of Hope,”acriticism of the United States about the jailing of the former New YorkTimes reporter Judith Miller for refusing to name her source in afederal leak investigation concerning classified information. He bolsters hiscontention by quoting a statement of African Editors Forum saluting Miller:“Hercourage is a source of inspiration to many editors and journalists in Africaand around the world who live through autocratic rule and suppression of freespeech daily…That she is now sitting in jail inwhat is supposed to be the pinnacle of democracy in the world is both ironicand a testimony to the fact that the struggle for the defense of the right ofjournalists to do their work freely is universal and knows no boundaries.”To be fair, the headlines at the timecould be very misleading to easily lend a cringing parallel to the persecutionjournalists in the Third World too often experience. But a closer look at thesituation in the context of the byzantine system of American democracy, we canunderstand why Miller is hardly anyone’sposter girl for press freedom. She wasn’tsent to jail by the White House to force her to betray a source that exposedthe Administration. An Independent Prosecutor investigating the White House forleaking the identity of an undercover CIA agent, a federal crime, for politicalvendetta, put her behind bars. As it turned out, Vice President Dick Cheney’sOffice had used Miller to sell the Iraq War to the American public as if the NewYork Times had been conducting its own independent, journalisticinvestigations about the justifications for military action against SaddamHussein. The US certainly has press freedom problems. But Miller demonstratedno courage of conviction, and she should never have been viewed as a source ofinspiration for African editors and journalists or any other for that matter.We need no further evidence when the New York Times cuther loose.Besides that instance, Jallow is verymuch at home with moral and philosophical truths. When Yahya Jammeh is longgone and remembered only for his sick fulminations, deranged narcissism, andcountless crimes, The Gambia will orbit along the axis of freedom of expressionJallow and like-minds ideate. His speeches and writings bring three things tomind. The opening paragraphs share strong resemblance to the emotional reachand rhetorical sweep of the oratory of a certain lanky Illinois lawyer servingin the most powerful and prestigious public office. His appeals to theinternational community to help hasten the arrival of democracy in The Gambiaring with the humiliation of a disillusioned patriot Desmond Tutu confessed tofeeling like every Black South African in foreign countries until the day theyvoted Mandela for President. His opting for exile in the face of death threatsisn’tincomparable to Voltaire — apioneering proponent of freedom of expression in the Enlightenment era —choosingexile in England over indefinite incarnation in the Bastille in his nativeFrance.All three elements fused into acoherence whole nowhere more so than at a media conference in Kenya: “Thebrutal murder of Deyda Hydara… markedyet another… descent into inhumanity and misrule…Theeditor of the Point… spoke the truth,and wrote the truth. He was not afraid to confront injustice, misgovernment, orcriminality. He has paid the ultimate price for his professionalism andintegrity…His death at the hands of murderersacting with impunity is a scourge in our land and marks a new phase in terrortactics and repression…It demonstrates theintractable view of [the despot] that all journalists are criminal illiterateswho would be best ‘buried six feetdeep’…Itexposes the rotten heart of [the regime] in my beautiful country…Ifa man like Deyda can be murdered for his proper execution of his profession,then no one can sleep peacefully in his or her bed; nobody will be spared.”The hopeful idealist, the desperatepragmatic, and the stubborn advocate once more merge into a unified voice atthe end of the main section of the book to summon us to the breach for freedomof expression. The fight is necessary as much as aspired for any hope offreedom to which people as individuals and nations are entitled.   PS: The Book —DelayedDemocracy: How Freedom of Expression Collapsedin The Gambia is available in Hardcover, Paperback andKindle Editions at Amazon.com, and in other places like Google books andAuthorhouse. 


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