Dakar, 17 June-(ANA)-Gambia's National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has arrested seven local journalists days after the local press union issued a statement critical of the government, colleagues said.
Gambia has long been criticised for clamping down on the press, particularly since the unexplained killing of a veteran journalist in 2004.
Reporters Without Borders said media harassment had reached unprecedented levels with the arrests.
Three members of the Gambian Press Union, two reporters from The Point Newspaper and two journalists working for Foroyaa Newspaper, were taken for questioning on Monday, the press union said in a statement.
One of the journalists from The Point, Pap Saine, is also the Reuters correspondent in the former British colony.
The arrests follow a June 12 reaction by the press union to Gambian President Yahya Jammeh's assertion the state was not responsible for the 2004 killing of Deyda Hydara and that press freedoms were respected in Gambia.
"It is certainly unbelievable that less than a week after President Jammeh has pronounced The Gambia as a state where one can freely exercise their rights to Freedom of Expression ... the NIA find it fitting to resort to their usual tactics of unnecessary high handedness in the face of truth," the union said.
One of the journalists' colleagues, who asked not to be named, said they were still being held on Tuesday.
"They were asked to report to the NIA. We don't know where they are being held," he said.(ANA)
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