(JollofNews)- A Gambian private radio editor who was abducted from his family home by agents of the country’s feared National Intelligence Agency has regained his freedom.
Alagie Abdoulaye Ceesay, managing editor of the independent radio, Teranga FM, was released on Monday after being held incommunicado for 12 days without charge.
Mr Ceesay’s radio station has been targeted in the past for airing discussions critical of Gambian politics. He was arrested on 2nd July 2015 while cooking tea at his residence in Sinchu Alagie, West Coast region, by two men who bundled him into the back of a black Mishubishi Pajero with tinted windows and no plates.
The Gambia government is yet to give the reason for his arrest, but Mr Ceesay’s family have told local journalists that he was subjected to both mental and physical torture while in detention by NIA officials.
The family added that after his release from detention, Mr Ceesay was dumped by the NIA officers in Yundum where he was later picked up by his family.
The Gambia has one of the worst press freedom environments in Africa and journalists who criticise the country’s president or the government face harassment, beatings, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and even death.
The country was ranked 152 out of 179 in the 2013 global Press Freedom index.
