Standing Up Against Injustice

Book excerpt: Standing Up Against Injustice Standing Up Against Injustice is both inspirational and instructive, emotional and riveting. A key element of this book is a focus on The Gambia's human rights situation and political landscape political turmoil; prison conditions and the plight of prisoners; the death penalty and executions; detention without trial, disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings; and, political repression, and corruption. These are all addressed from Dr. Amadou Scattered Janneh's personal experience and knowledge as a trained journalist, political scientist, former cabinet minister, entrepreneur, former political prisoner sentenced to a life-term, and a leading critic of the dictatorial regime of President Yahya Jammeh. Standing Up Against Injustice looks at Amadou's evolution from a seemingly shy pupil at Gunjur Primary School to a budding activist at Saint Augustine's High School; from a leading anti-apartheid activist at The University of Tennessee to a cabinet minister, and a political prisoner jailed for life. There is an extensive discussion of prison conditions and his incarceration at the Gambia's notorious Mile II Central Prisons where he saw prisoners being dragged away for execution in August 2012. The book concludes with a discussion of events leading to Dr. Janneh's release from prison through the intervention of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and his expulsion to the United States in September 2012.