Gambia: Torture, Repression Create State of Fear
Gambia’s government commits serious human rights violations against perceived critics and political opponents, perpetuating a climate of fear and repression.
The human rights situation in Gambia has deteriorated since President Yahya Jammeh took power in 1994 and ruthlessly repressed all forms of dissent. State security forces and shadowy paramilitary groups carry out unlawful killings and arbitrarily arrest, detain, and forcibly disappear people, causing hundreds to flee the tiny country, best known internationally as a tourist destination. Most of the abuses documented in the report are from 2013 to 2015.
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Just past 10 p.m. one night in November 2012, Bakary was pushed into a cell deep inside the headquarters of Gambia’s dreaded National Intelligence Agency (NIA). The cell was so notorious it had its own name: bambadinka – “the crocodile hole.” There was almost no air in the tiny, mosquito-infested black space, and six thick padlocks made escape impossible.
Bambadinka was the very worst cell in the entire NIA complex – a fact which, as a senior intelligence official himself, Bakary knew only too well. “It was at this point that I started to think I might die,” he told Human Rights Watch.
