Touray was jailed for protesting during the Yahya Jammeh regime. An environmental activist, he was pulled from his house by President Jammeh’s henchman and jailed for protesting against illegal sand mining, run by Jammeh’s brother, that was having a devastating environmental impact and also destroying ladies vegetable gardens in Habib’s village. Jason Florio.
‘”It will be cheaper than taking the vehicle!” said Florio – pulling at our over-stretched expedition budget purse-strings – that clinched the deal!…Ebu, very convincingly, stated: “Come, we go now, now!… We will get to Kedougou in two hours… and I will also return tonight, to Mali, with a passenger from Kedougou too!”. In actual fact, we would not reach Kedougou until 10pm that evening! If we had had even a hint that we would be on the back of those motorcycles for almost nine spine-juddering hours, not one of us would have been smiling, and joking, half as much as we did when we set off!’ Words by Helen Jones-Florio / River Gambia Expedition.
The above excerpt is taken from the ‘River Gambia Expedition – 1044km source-sea African odyssey‘ blog.
The Journey – 1 river | 2 borders | 3 countries
Guinea – Senegal – The Republic of The Gambia
Jason Florio & Helen Jones-Florio
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Ever wondered what it was like to be a human rights defender in GAMBIA during Yahya Jammeh’s regime?
Watch the trailer here
For more details about the free screening of the full documentary, in London – and how to register – please visit Amnesty Internationals twitter feed.
@FLORIO_GALLERY / @FLORIOTRAVELS / @JASONFLORIO INSTAGRAM
PHOTOSTELLSTORIES – FB
@floriophotoNYC – Twitter
Amnesty International will host a screening of the documentary (which we made for them) on 13th August, followed by a Q&A session with experts including Amnesty International’s West Africa researcher Sabrina Mahtani, and chaired by Amnesty International’s Deputy Director of Global Issues and Head of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Makmid Kamara.
‘Gambia’s last decades during President Jammeh’s regime were a story of serious human rights violations. During the 22 years (1994-2016) that Jammeh was in power, the space for expression of dissent was severely limited. President Jammeh’s regime included enforced disappearances, torture, restrictions on freedom of expression, arbitrary arrests, and detention…’ Amnesty – see all the details on their Eventbrite page.
