Gambian rapper 'fled country after song sparked death threats'

Ali Cham claims his family and management were in cross hairs of country’s intelligence agency after track accused government of repression

A Gambian rapper who recorded a song accusing authorities of growing repression and extra-judicial killings has said he had fled the west African country after receiving death threats.

Ali Cham, known by his stage name Killa Ace, said his family began getting inquiries about his whereabouts from the Gambia’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA) on 23 June, the day his song was released.

“My wife and I, and my manager, incessantly received death threats and calls from the NIA demanding my whereabouts,” he told journalists on Thursday.

Asked about the death threats, information minister Sheriff Bojang said: “The government of the Gambia does not respond to such trivial matters.”

Cham said he fled across the border to Senegal in July along with his family and management. He is now applying for asylum while recording more songs for his album Lyrical Revolution.

“A full entire country and they say no one is allowed to speak. Not the imam, not the nation, not the journalist? Why?” asks the song Ku Boka C Geta G, which means roughly “all those with the cattle herd deserve milk” in Wolof.

Rights groups have reported a deterioration in civil liberties in the Gambia this year since a failed coup plot in December that sought to overthrow the longstanding president, Yahya Jammeh.

The government denies this and says it has made progress on press freedom and legal due process.

Djibril Balde, from New York-based rights group International Refugee Rights Initiative, says that at least 50 Gambians have asked for assistance with asylum requests in Senegal this year, a figure that exceeds 2014 and represents only a small portion of the total migrants.

Many of them are fleeing persecution under an “aggravated homosexuality” law passed in October 2014, he added.

Source: Theguardian.com

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