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COLUMN | How Yankuba Touray’s Legal Adventures Upend Society and Spook the Constitution

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  By Pa Louis Sambou   I t is natural human reaction cum instinct to embrace any, if not the first conviction which comes by, following the occurrence of a crime. In this instance, it was no ordinary crime and, to add insult to injury, its first conviction may with time be laid bare as anything but justice for the victim. The unique brutality which surrounds the circumstances of the case in question and the very long wait for justice may perhaps be qualifications which better explain the gravity of the aforementioned reception as regards news of  Yankuba Touray’s murder conviction  in the case of  late Ousman Koro Ceesay, AFPRC Finance Minister murdered in 1995 . For a transgression so brutal in its execution and coverup, the blatant refusal by the rogue State (as it then was) to acknowledge or even recognise such occurrence as a bona fide crime worthy of an investigation, no amount of convictions nor weight and burden imposed by any sentence may sufficiently bring forth a sense of pub

OPINION | “Doff Yi": My Struggles with Depression

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By Amran Gaye (contributing author) In 2011, while in college in the US, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was a new label, for things I had always felt, as far back as I can remember: my changing moods, my insomnia, my endless anxieties...  I was lucky enough to be in a country with a mental health care system: medication and therapists and psychiatrists, a whole system set up to take care of me and people like me.  Most Gambians living with mental illness do not have this privilege.  * The earliest "doff" I remember is  the toubab "doff".  In primary school, standing at the gates of the national library, I saw him. Stark naked, his skin sunburnt almost brown, a distracted look on his face, muttering to himself as he walked slowly down the street.  And behind him: a train of children, holding long branches which they used to poke his butt from a safe distance, giggling at this impossible sight suddenly appeared in their day. I ran into the library, and by t