COMMENTARY
No Longer a Beacon of Hope
 An African journalist laments the message Judith Miller's jailing sends
to the rest of the world
By Alagi Yorro Jallow



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October 19, 2005
On February 2, 2003, the police in my hometown of Banjul in the Gambia
arrested and interrogated me about a lead story I had published in my
newspaper, the Independent. The topic, an all too common one in my part of
the world, revealed that the president of the country was the owner of a
new five-star hotel and that several of his cronies were secret
shareholders.

The police demanded that I write a statement disclosing the source of my
information. I refused. They threatened to send me to jail if I did not
cooperate. I was held incommunicado in solitary confinement for nearly 48
hours. I was stripped naked and kept in a dank cell until my release.

For me, this was nothing new. The police and the National Intelligence
Agency have arrested, detained and interrogated me in the Gambia more than
a dozen times in the past six years. Government forces have challenged the
legality of my newspaper, for which I am the managing editor, and have
pressed me to reveal sources for several investigative pieces.

Back then, the United States, with its strong tradition of press freedom,
was a beacon of hope. Journalists were not picked up by thugs and jailed
for protecting sources.

Like my colleagues who have struggled to publish newspapers that are not
owned and controlled by the government, I have faced violence as well.
Arsonists attacked the Independent twice. The first time, on October 10,
2003, the office was burned and the newspaper's security guard was beaten
unconscious, but the printing equipment was left intact. A second attack
on April 13, 2004, believed to have been carried out by the Gambian
military, destroyed the printing press. I have received several death
threats, including a letter in January 2004 from the "Green Boys," a
paramilitary group connected with President Yahya Jammeh's ruling party.

The worst blow came on December 16, 2004, when my colleague Deyda Hydara,
a respected publisher of another independent newspaper and my co-plaintiff
in a lawsuit challenging restrictive media laws in my country, was shot at
close range as he drove home from work. So far, no one has been indicted,
but many members of the media suspect government forces were behind
Hydara's murder.

In this hostile environment, we often looked to the United States as a
source of encouragement and support. For years, the American government
assisted private newspapers with funds and equipment as part of its
efforts to promote democracy worldwide. All independent newspapers in the
Gambia, a republic in West Africa, benefited from such support.

And we benefited from something more: U.S. diplomats visited our newsrooms
in public demonstrations of solidarity; the current ambassador, Joseph
Stafford, visited Deyda Hydara in his office the day he was murdered.
These gestures had great impact.

When I was being interrogated about my sources for the story on
presidential corruption, I knew that my reporting was in the best
tradition of a free press, the kind of journalism the United States seemed
interested in promoting in my country. When I refused to reveal my
confidential sources, I felt the support of American journalists and
diplomats. I believe the police and the government did, too, which is why
they didn't carry through on their threat to imprison me.

That was two-and-a-half years ago. Since then, attacks on the press in the
Gambia have taken their toll: After Hydara's murder, I was forced to flee
the country in the wake of assassination threats.

My newspaper has suspended publication. The U.S., meanwhile, has curtailed
its financial support for the independent press in the Gambia. With the
confinement of Jim Taricani under house arrest last year in Rhode Island
and the jailing of Judith Miller for not revealing confidential sources,
America has joined a list of some 20 other countries where journalists are
in prison for their work.

The outlook is very different now for my colleagues who are detained and
grilled about the sources of their stories. That is why the African
Editors Forum, which represents media leaders in more than 30 countries on
the African continent, has issued a statement saluting Miller for choosing
to go to jail. "Her courage is a source of inspiration to many editors and
journalists in Africa and around the world who live through autocratic
rule and suppression of free speech daily," the statement says. "That she
is now sitting in jail in what is supposed to be the pinnacle of democracy
in the world is both ironic and a testimony to the fact that the struggle
for the defense of the right of journalists to do their work freely is
universal and knows no boundaries."

As a journalist from a Third World country where democratic values and
freedom of the press are not well respected, I urge those responsible for
this decision to recognize that the privilege to protect confidential
sources is crucial to press freedom, not only in the United States, but
around the world. For us, so much stands to be lost.

Alagi Yorro Jallow, who now lives temporarily in the United States, is
managing editor of the Independent, and a former BBC correspondent in the
Gambia and vice president of the Gambia Press Union. Jallow twice won
Human Rights Watch's Hellman/Hammett Award, given to journalists who have
faced persecution by their governments.



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