By Adama Makasuba
Abubacarr Tamabedou, Minister of Justice and Attorney General, has said the government is committed about not seeing reoccurrence of human rights violation in the country.
Baa Tambedou was speaking at a press conference on Tuesday at the Attorney chamber in Banjul.
“The Gambia will no longer witness human rights violation, it is impossible. What we intend to do through our reforms is to make sure that there is no culture of human rights violation anymore and that there is no culture of impunity when the violations occur,” he said.
He added: “What that mean is that, we will do our utmost to prevent but that when it occurs we will do our utmost to address and provide effective remedy. That is what we have committed to.”
On the Faraba Banta PIU case, he said “we have review the Faraba banta report and concluded that giving the entire circumstances of the event, the charge of murder should be substituted with the charge of manslaughter. The PIU personnel implicated in the killings will just be prosecuted in the basis of manslaughter.”
Meanwhile, he said his ministry “embarked on a comprehensive amendment of the information and telecommunication act with the aim of removing all the bad and unconstitutional media laws enacted by the previous administration and also to provide for laws that will facilitate the exercise of rights to freedom of expression.”
According to him, his ministry has been working closely with the Ministry of Information, Communication and Infrastructure and Article 19 on a comprehensive review process of the media law in the country.
He added: “This involve the promulgation a media services act that will consolidate and modernize a variety of currently desperate and often obsolete media relate laws such as the newspaper and broadcasting station act of 1944 or the telegraph station act of 1913.”