In a strongly worded letter, Gambian born American professor of Political Science, Comparative Politics and African Studies, Dr. Abdoulaye Saine warns the British government to abort attempts to deport Gambian journalist and human rights crusader, Abdou Karim Sanneh to his native Gambia. Saine, a foremost expert on The Gambia, is an erudite scholar and only this month has published a treatise on President Jammeh’s harrowing authoritarianism. In a terse letter sent to British Foreign Secretary, The Honorable David Miliband and copied to The Gambia Echo, Professor Saine was categorical when he said “Sending him back to The Gambia, where officers of the National Intelligence Agency eagerly await his arrival, would be akin to feeding him to the sharks.” Below we reproduce the letter verbatim:

Professor Saine & British Foreign Sect. Miliband

February 17, 2009


Abdoulaye Saine, Ph.D.
Professor, & Chair of the International Relations Committee
Department of Political Science
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
(513) 529-2489
(513) 529-1709 (Fax)
sainea@muohio.edu

MEMORANDUM


To: The Honorable, David Miliband, British Foreign Secretary
London
United Kingdom

On behalf of Concerned Gambians in the U.S.A., I write to request that you intervene and halt deportation proceedings against Mr. Abdou Karim Sanneh to The Gambia, for not doing so could lead to his death.  Mr. Sanneh is a leading dissident and critic of President Yahya Jammeh and his regime. Sending him back to The Gambia, where officers of the National Intelligence Agency eagerly await his arrival, would be akin to feeding him to the sharks. If Mr. Sanneh were to be found guilty of violating British Immigration Law(s), we recommend he serves his punishment in the UK.

The Gambia's human rights environment under Yahya Jammeh has in the last fifteen years deteriorated drastically and without the protections often associated with the rule of law.  Under Jammeh's rule, dissidents have been singled out for torture, Kangaroo trials, (often with the imposition of unreasonable fines), abductions, disappearances, assassination and assassination attempts.  The murder of journalist Deyda Hydara in 2004 and (earlier in 2000 of Omar Barrow, also a journalists) remains unsolved.  Meanwhile, Mr. Pap Saine, who with Hydara established The Point Newspaper in the early 1990s, is currently being questioned on a daily basis by the police for allegedly reporting a story, which the authorities claim had compromised "state security."  Since the 1994 coup, Mr. Saine has been consistently harassed by the regime and we fear he could be murdered, like his ex-Coeditor, Hydara, by agents in the pay of the state. This is the human rights environment Mr. Sanneh would be deported to.

We recommend that you bring pressure to bare on Jammeh and his "gang of robbers" to respect and protect the rights of citizens and of foreign nationals.  Already, Jammeh is being investigated by ECOWAS and the UN in the alleged deaths of some sixty Africans, forty-four of whom were Ghanaian. We further recommend your Government and the Commonwealth to investigate these alleged killings and if sufficient evidence were to be found against Jammeh that he be tried at The Hague. Until then, we humbly recommend that your Government along with the Commonwealth impose travel-advisories on the country as was done in 1994, following Jammeh's overthrew of a democratically elected government.

Respectfully,

Abdoulaye Saine, Ph.D.