Yahya Jammeh

Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year rule in Gambia was marked by widespread abuses, including forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and arbitrary detention. He sought exile in Equatorial Guinea in January 2017 after losing the December 2016 presidential election to Adama Barrow.

In October 2017, Gambian and international rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, launched the “Campaign to Bring Yahya Jammeh and his Accomplices to Justice” (#Jammeh2Justice), which calls for prosecuting Jammeh and others who bear the greatest responsibility for his government’s crimes under international fair trial standards.

Human Rights Watch’s work on the Campaign is coordinated by Reed Brody, who earlier assisted the victims in the landmark prosecution of former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré.

Multimedia

Meet the Beauty Queen Who Inspired Gambia’s Me Too Movement After Accusing Ex-Dictator of Rape, Democracy Now (September 19, 2019)

Breaking the Silence: Gambian Beauty Queen Publicly Accuses Former Dictator of Rape, Democracy Now (September 20, 2019)

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Ayeshah Jammeh

Victims’ Activist

He broke my family into pieces, and he broke so many families into pieces.

My dad went missing when I was just 14 years old. He was against things that Yahya had been doing. Sometimes I find it so hard to understand these things.

Fatoumatta Sandeng

Justice Activist

Some people liked Jammeh, loved him, and didn’t believe what people were telling them

Reed Brody

Human Right Watch

For 22 years, Yahya Jammeh was the president of Gambia. His rule was marked by the torture and killing of dissenters, the arrest of journalists, sexual violence, massive corruption.

In January 2017, Jammeh fled to Equatorial Guinea. Now, details of the Jammeh government’s crimes are coming out.

January 7, 2019

Gambia

Lamin Sise

Chairperson

Good morning everyone. I call to order the first public meeting of the TRRC.

Essa Faal

Lead Counsel

This is an investigation into the mass atrocities that occurred in this country between 1994 and 2017.

Reed Brody

The testimonies that came out at the Truth Commission, the TRRC, have implicated Jammeh personally in many of the worst crimes.

Essa Faal

Yahya Jammeh told you what?

Sanna Sabally

Fmr. Junta Vice Chair

He told me clearly, “We have to execute the ringleaders.”

Essa Faal

And that is what you did?

Sanna Sabally

Exactly.

Fatoumatta Sandeng

Everybody is glued to their TVs, their phones, on Facebook just to hear from people who had killed people, from people who had tortured people.

Amadou Badjie

Fmr. Death Squad Member

Yahya Jammeh said, “Let’s kill these people and cut their flesh into pieces.”

Essa Faal

Cut them up into pieces?

Amadou Badjie

Cut them up into pieces.

Essa Faal

Like they would do meat.

Amadou Badjie

Exactly.

Fatoumatta Sandeng

The Gambia was a place where a dictator was operating undercover. We have also seen a lot of non-Gambians being killed in Gambia, being imprisoned for nothing.

Omar A. Jallow

Fmr. Death Squad Member

These people are mercenaries. The order from the Head of State, the former President Yahya Jammeh is they are all to be executed.

Reed Brody

One man survived to tell the story of the massacre of 59 West African migrants.

Martin Kyere

Survivor and Activist

I tell my guys that I have my hands off from the rope. And they said it’s God who wants to save you to tell the world what Yahya Jammeh has done to us and how he have killed us.

I hope justice will be served and the perpetrators will be brought before law.

Reed Brody

Jammeh organized a phony AIDS program which forced HIV-positive Gambians to give up their medicines and put themselves in his personal care,

Fatou Jatta

Survivor and Activist

One of the rules was that anyone that came for the treatment, they were told, you were using ARV [antiretroviral medicine], you will have to stop it.

Dr Assan Jaye

HIV/AIDS Expert

Some died no matter how much we tried. Why these people died there, it’s because of the length they stayed at the presidential treatment program.

Protected survivor of sexual assault

Yahaya Jammeh was very powerful and cunning. He targeted young women from vulnerable family and using state institutions and resources to ensure that women could not say ‘No.’

Fatou “Toufah” Jallow

Activist

There was a whole system. For him to exploit for him to rape.

He said, “Let’s see if you are a virgin.” And um…swear to God I was scared.

My justice most importantly includes a whole system change, so that we can prosecute this man, have our day in court. I want the next person after me to be a little less scared.

Reed Brody

Now, the truth commission will recommend that those behind the crimes be prosecuted and it will be up to the government to seek Jammeh’s extradition.

Neneh Cham

Lawyer

It is the last hope for many victims. Their fear every day is that it is all going to come to naught.

I urge this government to implement every single recommendation that will come out of this commission.

Ayeshah Jammeh

I just have one wish. I wish I will have the opportunity to face Yahya himself and then ask him why he had to kill my dad.

Fatoumatta Sandeng

The least that a victim needs is the truth. So, the testimonies and the stories of these people make people know who Jammeh really was. Justice for all those people means Jammeh should pay for everything that he had done.

#Jammeh2Justice