Patrick Grady – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Patrick Grady on 2016-06-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions his Department has had with the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect on alleged violence against ethnic groups in Gambia.

James Duddridge

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not held recent discussions with the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect on alleged violence against ethnic groups in The Gambia. However, we fully endorse the statement of the UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, released on 10 June, in which he condemned inflammatory rhetoric by President Jammeh, and called for the rights of all populations of The Gambia to be respected. We regularly press the government of The Gambia at senior levels to protect the human rights of all its people.

Our Ambassador to The Gambia recently has discussed the situation in the country with the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for West Africa and with UN representatives in Banjul. We and our partners will continue to monitor the situation closely, particularly the protection afforded to different ethnic groups.