A person at risk! An alert to all concerned Gambians and human rights agencies.
A Gambian activist is currently being detained in Scotland. Modou Ndow has been in custody at Dungavel House in South Lanarkshire, Hamilton. His detention resulted when he reported for a routine signing in at the immigration centre.
The United Kingdom immigration services were alerted to be wary of the risks Ndow faces if he is deported to the Gambia. He is a person at risk of arrest, torture or enhanced disappearances. Ndow had on many occasions attended protests against his native country’s dictatorship government.
Gambian activists urged the UK Border Agency to release Mr Modou Ndow on humanitarian grounds. He needs protection from a government that is known for infringing on the political and civic rights of its citizens.
As a victim of the Gambia’s bloody student carnage in April 2000, activists said Ndow has had enough of the state brutality. The April 10 and 11 student protest saw the broad daylight massacre of more than a dozen students by trigger-happy security forces. And to make matters worse, the government indemnified the killers through a back-dated law. At the time of the carnage, Ndow was only 14. He is yet to be healed from the trauma of helplessly watching his colleague being shot to dead. Ndow left the Gambia after security forces pursued him in 2003.
Previous attempts to deport Ndow were unsuccessful.
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