EPA Photo |
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Timeline
12 November 2008:
IPI launches Justice Denied campaign, calling for the
release of Deyda Hydara, among other issues.
November
2006: The only charges filed against Mahmoud Wally
Hakim are dropped.
February
2005: Businessman Mahmoud Wally Hakim, with whom
Deyda Hydara had argued in the past, is found to possess
firearms and arrested. Local journalists, however, question
his involvement in the murder.
16
December 2004: Deyda Hydara's last published article
reasserts his commitment to challenge the country's
new media laws. That evening, Deyda Hydara is shot to
death on his way home from work.
15
December 2004: An article written by Deyda Hydara
criticizes the new media laws and vows to challenge
them in court.
14
December 2004: Two controversial media laws, imposing
onerous licensing requirements and introducing prison
sentences for offences such as sedition, are approved
by The Gambia's National Assembly.
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Read
the press release "New IPI Campaign Calls
for Justice for Journalists Worldwide"
in English
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Deyda
Hydara, outspoken journalist and co-founder
of The Point newspaper, was brutally murdered
on his way home from work on the night of 16 December
2004.
That night, the journalist
drove two of his colleagues, Isatou Jagne and Niansarang
Jobe, home after an office celebration of his publication's
13th anniversary. As he turned the car onto Sankung
Sillah Street, he slowed down to let another car pass.
Instead, a man in that car repeatedly shot at him from
the passenger seat. Hydara, who was killed immediately,
was hit by a bullet in his left temple and in his chest.
The latter bullet also hit his colleague Jagne in the
ankle, and a third bullet hit Jobe's knee.
Jagne, who had been sitting
in the front passenger seat, managed to get out of the
car before it landed in a ditch on the side of the road.
She sought assistance from policemen at a nearby police
garage. When other officers arrived several minutes
later, the two women were taken to a police station
and, after refusing to issue statements, finally to
a hospital in Banjul. They soon flew to Dakar, Senegal,
for medical treatment, and have since refused to disclose
their location out of fear for their safety.
Hydara was an outspoken
advocate of press freedom. In his last published article
for The Point, he announced his plans to challenge
two controversial laws introduced in The Gambia on 14
December 2004: the Criminal Code (Amendment) Bill 2004,
imposing prison sentences for press offences such as
defamation and sedition; and the Newspaper (Amendment)
Bill 2004, requiring expensive operating licenses and
obligating newspaper owners to register their homes
as security for the payment of any fines.
The investigation into
Hydara's murder has yielded no results. In February
2005, authorities arrested Mahmoud Wally Hakim, a businessman,
in whose home several firearms were found. In the past,
Hakim and Hydara had argued over Hydara's reporting
on the government. However, local journalists were sceptical
about his possible implication in the murder. The only
proceedings initiated against Hakim were based on the
unlawful possession and importation of firearms, and
the case against him was withdrawn in November 2006.
Many have instead pointed
to the "Green Boys", an officially disbanded
group consisting of young activists from the ruling
Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction's
(APRC) most radical wing. The group has been tied to
several threats made against journalists in 2004, including
Alagi Yorro Jallow, managing editor of The Independent.
Before his death, Hydara received similar warnings,
with an anonymous letter in July 2004 threatening to
"teach a very good lesson" to anyone criticising
President Yahya Jammeh.
Deyda Hydara was born on
9 June 1946 in Banjul. He began his media career with
Radio Syd. Starting in 1974, he worked as a correspondent
for Agence France Presse, and later also worked as a
correspondent for The Senegambia Sun and, from
1994 onwards, for Reporters without Borders. He co-founded
The Point, an independent newspaper, with Pap
Saine in 1991, and wrote several regular columns including
"The Bite", "Good Morning", and
"Mr. President". Hydara was also the treasurer
of the West Africa Journalists Association. He was married
to Maria Dacosta, with whom he had four children.
In 2005, the PEN American
Center awarded Deyda Hydara its PEN/Barbara Goldsmith
Freedom to Write Award, which honours writers who "have
fought courageously in the face of adversity of the
right to freedom of expression".
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