Banjul - Gambian police
arrested a university lecturer and kept him in overnight detention for
questioning the president's ability to maintain national security in a
newspaper interview, he told AFP on Thursday.
Campaigners said the arrest was a
worrying echo of restrictions on freedom of speech under the former
regime of Yahya Jammeh, who was forced to leave the West African country
for exile in Equatorial Guinea a year ago.
The new government has repeatedly
promised to protect human rights, including freedom of expression and
press freedom, which were tightly controlled under Jammeh.
Ismaila Ceesay, an outspoken political
science lecturer at the University of The Gambia, was arrested on
Wednesday afternoon and charged with incitement to violence after
several hours of questioning. He was released on Thursday morning.
"I was released this morning. My
lawyer said they have told him that they have dropped the charges and
that they would apologise," he told AFP.
A nightime vigil for his release was
held by journalists and campaigners outside the police station where
Ceesay was questioned, along with a concerted social media campaign
against his arrest.
Ceesay had recently given an interview
to the Voice newspaper in which he said pockets of the Gambian military
"feel rejected by the administration" which could "cause pockets of
mutiny".
President Adama Barrow has relied on
Senegalese troops deployed by the Economic Community of West African
States (Ecowas) for the last year as he reforms the country's security
forces, sections of which are believed to maintain loyalty to Jammeh.
"Did (Barrow) one day visit any
military barracks since he came to power? That should have been his
first mission," he told the Gambian daily.
The police told him that "military
officers could use that statement to say that if Dr Ceesay could say
this, it means they can do it," he told AFP.
A thwarted coup plot in July and the
arrival of two former Jammeh generals through Banjul's airport this
month without anyone sounding the alarm has revealed dangerous lapses in
the country's security apparatus.
AFP
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