The Pro-Jammeh APRC faction has asked the police to apologise to the group for breaking up their press conference and arresting one of their leaders.

A senior member of the group Lamin Tamba described the police action as “intimidation and harassment”.

“The police absolutely have no right to go into private property. So therefore, the police have wronged us; they need to apologise to the APRC party [and] there is only one APRC party that’s led by [former] resident Jammeh,” said Tamba, who is based in the U.K. 

“In a private property without any public obstruction [and] without any public address system the police turned up and said: ‘they were going to break the APRC press conference’ and they have no right to do so. 

“The first officers they sent I don’t know whether they were not informed or not. The reasons they told us for breaking up the press conference was that: we didn’t have a permit,” he added.

“So that’s rule number one, that’s wrong because we were on private property and we can invite BBC and the second reason they said when they knew the permit doesn’t work was that we were using the APRC name. 

“We are APRC supporters and we are not dismissed from the APRC. If GANU organises a press conference and uses APRC logo and property that’s a breach of intellectual property,” Mr Tamba continued.

He said APRC supporters have every right within the laws of the country to hold activities for the party. 

“[Former] President Jammeh never throughout his 22 years used the forces: the police or army to go and break up a press conference.” 

He said the police have no case against Jerending Sanyang, one of the group’s leader in custody.  

Reporting by Adama Makasuba