The Point (the Gambia) facts for kids

The Point is a popular daily newspaper that is printed in Bakau, a town in the Gambia. It shares news and stories with people every day.

About The Point Newspaper

How It Started

The Point newspaper was started on December 16, 1991. It was founded by three friends: Pap Saine, Deyda Hydara, and Babucarr Gaye. Pap Saine and Deyda Hydara had known each other since they were kids. Babucarr Gaye left the newspaper after about four months. After that, Hydara and Saine worked together to run the paper for many years. Pap Saine also worked as a reporter for Reuters in West Africa.

When it first started, The Point came out once a week, on Mondays. Then, it started coming out twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. By 1995, the newspaper was printed three times a week. In 2001, it came out four times a week. Finally, in 2006, The Point became a daily newspaper, meaning it was published every day.

In the early 2000s, the newspaper had a special section about history each week. A famous Gambian leader and historian named Alieu Ebrima Cham Joof wrote for this section. He shared interesting stories, like "The Genesis of The Half-Die Mosque" in May 2003.

A Difficult Time

On December 16, 2004, something very sad happened. Deyda Hydara, one of the people who started The Point, tragically lost his life. This happened during the time when Yahya Jammeh was the leader of the Gambia. After Deyda Hydara's death, the newspaper continued to show his picture on its website. Below the picture, it asked, "Who killed Deyda Hydar?" This question reminded everyone of the unsolved mystery. After Deyda's passing, his wife, Mrs. Maria Hydara, joined the newspaper's management team.

Laws and Challenges

Just before Deyda Hydara's death, on December 14, 2004, the Gambia passed two new laws about media. One law, called the Criminal Code (Amendment) Bill, said that people could go to prison for saying things that hurt someone's reputation (called defamation) or for encouraging people to rebel against the government (called sedition). The other law, the Newspaper (Amendment) Bill, made newspaper owners buy very expensive licenses to operate. They even had to use their homes as a guarantee for these licenses.

Deyda Hydara had planned to challenge these new laws. But sadly, on December 16, he was killed by an unknown person while driving home in Banjul. The mystery of who killed him was never solved.

After Deyda Hydara's death, Pap Saine continued to lead The Point. He made it a daily newspaper in 2006. Soon, it became the only independent newspaper in the Gambia. This meant it was the only paper that was not controlled by the government.

Arrests in 2009

On February 2, 2009, Pap Saine and another reporter from The Point, Modou Sanyang, were arrested by the police in the Gambia. They were suspected of "publishing and spreading false information." Modou Sanyang was released with a warning. However, Pap Saine was formally charged.

The Media Foundation of West Africa said that the arrests happened because of a story The Point published. The story was about a Gambian diplomat who had been arrested and sent to a prison called Mile 2. Pap Saine was held because he would not tell the police where he got his information. One week later, after another story about the Gambian Embassy in the US, Pap Saine was arrested again. He was questioned for a long time and given a second charge of "publishing and spreading false information."

On February 24, the authorities also said that Pap Saine was from Senegal and had gotten his Gambian birth certificate by giving "false statements." He had to face two separate trials for all these charges. Reporters Without Borders said that the way Pap Saine was being treated was like "hounding" him. They asked Kamalesh Sharma, the head of the Commonwealth, to help. Luckily, on April 9, the charges of "publishing and spreading false information" were officially dropped.

Awards and Recognition

The people who worked at The Point and its founders have received many important awards for their brave work.

Deyda Hydara, after his death, was given the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award in 2005. In 2010, he also received the Hero of African Journalism Award from The African Editors' Forum. He shared this award with another journalist, Ebrima Manneh, who had disappeared.

In 2006, Pap Saine received the Johann Philipp Palm Award for his work with The Point. This award is named after a bookseller who was executed by Napoleon. It honors people who are very important in promoting freedom of speech and the press.

In 2010, the International Press Institute named Pap Saine a World Press Freedom Hero. He was the third person from West Africa to win this special title. Pap Saine said that the award made him feel stronger and was "an inspiration for journalists who are fighting for freedom of the press and the interests of justice, democracy and human rights not only in the Gambia but in all of Africa."