Yaya Dampha in Sweden with Karin Bolin, the Department Secretary in charge of West Africa
We had a meeting with official of the Swedish foreign ministry on the 22 July. About 15 Gambians in Stockholm participated in our journey to the foreign ministry. I and three other Gambians were allowed in to meet Madam Karin Bolin, Department Sectary in charge of West Africa. She is also EU desk officer.
We presented the public statement to her and talked about the human rights abuses and violations in Gambia. We also gave her highlights on the lack of press freedom and the case of Chief Ebrima Manneh and Kanyiba Kanyi among others.
I gave my own case also during my arrest with the Amnesty International team in Gambia in October 2007.
Vigil for Tissa in London ©Amnesty International
On Friday 6 March, the Sri Lankan Team at the International Secretariat organised a vigil outside the Sri Lankan High Commission in London to mark one year in detention for Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam, known as Tissa to his friends and family.
Tissa has been named a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International who believes that he has been imprisoned for simply carrying out his journalist activities. Tissa has become an emblematic case for what has become the fate of many journalists and media workers in Sri Lanka held under sweeping terrorist legislation.
Continue reading ‘Vigil for imprisoned journalist in Sri Lanka’
Friederike Behr blogs from Russia on the Anna Politkovskaya murder trial
Anna Politkovskaya - murdered on 6 October 2006. ©Katja Tähjä
The jury hearing of the trial into the murder of Anna Politkovskaya has been going on now for about two weeks.
There is still strong media interest in the trial and on some days I have not been able to attend the hearing. The court official, who is in charge of organizing the media access, does not really know what to do about me. I’m the only NGO representative wanting to attend the trial.
Every morning, I have to struggle hard to get on the list of those who are allowed into the court room. Once I got in with the help of Karinna Moskalenko, one of the lawyers of Anna Politkovskaya’s family, who dragged me past the court official and told him that Amnesty International has to be at the hearing.
The journalists from Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper Anna Politkovskaya worked for, get in every day and give a daily account of events in the court room. The following summary is partly based on the reporting from Novaya Gazeta:
The trial so far…
Continue reading ‘Anna Politkovskaya - the trial begins’
Friederike Behr blogs from Russia on the Anna Politkovskaya murder trial
Anna Politkovskaya - murdered on 6 October 2006. ©Katja Tähjä
Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered on 7 October 2006 in Moscow. She was shot on a Saturday afternoon, when she walked into the lift in the apartment building she lived in.
I had met her several times, one time right after Russian special forces had stormed a theatre in Moscow, where a group of men and women had taken over 800 people hostage. Anna Politkovskaya had tried to intervene and help to save the lives of those in the theatre. Subsequently, the theatre was stormed and about 150 people died.
Continue reading ‘Trial into the murder of human rights journalist Anna Politkovskaya’
