[An Nahar] The Gambia
... The Gambia is actually surrounded by Senegal on all sides but its west coast. It has a population of about 1.7 million. The difference between the two is that in colonial days Senegal was ruled by La Belle France and The Gambia (so-called because there's only one of it, unlike Guinea, of which there are the Republic of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, New Guinea, the English coin in circulation between 1663 and 1813, and Guyana, which sounds like it should be another one) was ruled by Britain...
tossed in the calaboose
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
a leading opposition politician on Wednesday for sedition after he helped two supporters planning to flee to Finland, according to an Agence La Belle France Presse correspondent present at the trial.
Judge Emmanuel Nkea handed United Democratic Party treasurer Amadou Sanneh a five-year sentence for writing an open letter backing the activists, who intended to seek asylum in the northern European country.
Sanneh's letter on UDP-headed paper said the pair, who were also tossed in the calaboose
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
for five years, risked being killed if they stayed in The Gambia, the court in Banjul was told.
All three were convicted of conspiring to commit an act "with seditious intention" while Sanneh was also found guilty of "intent to bring hatred or contempt or excite dissatisfaction against the person of the president of the republic of The Gambia."
A sliver of land nestled within Senegal
... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees...
with a narrow strip of Atlantic coast, the Gambia is ruled with an iron fist by President Yahya Jammeh, a military dictator and former wrestler who took power in a bloodless coup in 1994 and is accused of flouting human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
.
The country introduced new laws in April criminalizing male prostitution, cross-dressing and the singing of abusive songs in public.
Media laws describing crimes of sedition, slander and publication of false information implemented in 2004 are so restrictive that an article, cartoon or even gesture seen as insulting to Jammeh can land a person in jail. 
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