Lawyer Yankuba Darboe has criticized the Gambian government’s defense of Rohingya Muslims at the International Criminal Court against the government of Myanmar.
The Gambian government has recently filed legal charges against the government of Myanmar over human rights violations against the Rohingya Muslims.
Darboe, an executive member of “Three Years Jotna”, a pressure group forcing President Adama Barrow to honor his 3 years promise and stepdown, said whilst Gambians’ rights to civil liberties and association are stifled, there is no point for the country to sue Myanmar over the fate of minority Muslims.
He made this statement at OB Semega Janneh Hall where organizing members of “Three Years Jotna” were denied entry for their planned fundraising event.
Officials of the Paramilitary Police Force are reported to have blocked the organization from holding its fundraising activity to the dismay of many attendees.
“Every reasonable Gambian knows that this is a persecution, a classic example of it and this is what is happening right here in The Gambia. The very country that is taking Myanmar and other countries to the International Criminal Court (ICC) claiming that those countries have violated the human rights of their people, that is the same government that is doing the same thing to its citizens,” Darboe argued.
He added: “The Gambian government is doing the same thing as Myanmar. Simply because its citizens have dissenting views…because they are holding the President accountable to his own pledge, promise and agreement that he made to the Gambian people. He sought for a mandate of three years, he was given and now the people are demanding for him to honor that mandate and he is blatantly trying to suppress their views, trying to oppress their opinion…this is what is happening in The Gambia”.
According to him, the refusal of police to allow them to proceed with their fundraising event quite simply tells that the government of Adama Barrow is ready to push the “Three Years Jotna” to react.
Darboe said the police could not give or rely on any section or sections of the constitution
or other laws of the country to deny them the right to hold their fundraising.
“We have to cancel it because we want to prove to them that we are law abiding, we are not going to fall under their belt. We know where their belt is, is quite simple, is to provoke us with the expectation that we will react negatively, but we have proven to them once again that we are not going to do that,” Lawyer Darboe, disclosed.
Many Gambian activists including Coach Pa Samba Jow, Mathieu Jallow, Madi Jobarteh, and Omar Joof among others have condemned the move by the police, observing that Gambia’s Public Order Act on which the police relied on should be scrapped if The Gambia is to make any headway in consolidating the gains of democracy.
The title of the article is wrong, the Gambia Government didn’t take Myanmar to the ICC, but the International Court of Justice(ICJ).