Fatou Camara

Fatoumata "Fatu" Camara (also Fatou Camara) is a television presenter and journalist from the West African state of The Gambia.

Career After finishing high school, she worked for Radio 1 FM and part-time from 1996 for the National Youth Service Scheme (NYSS), simultaneously with her job at Citizen FM . She left The Gambia in 1996 and studied media and communication in Birmingham.

In 2011 and again in 2013 she served President Yahya Jammeh as a press officer (Director of Press & Communication, Office of the President). In 2011 she was released from work after three months. In 2013, she was arrested as a press officer and ultimately detained for 25 days without contact with the outside world in September. During her detention, she was asked to hand over passwords to her email and Facebook to officers of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). According to the new internet laws, she could faced up to 15 years in prison for 'tarnishing the image' of the president. After paying a bail, she lost her job, and there was executive instruction from the president to prohibit her further appearances on television. Camara fled abroad via Senegal. Since then she has been living in exile in Georgia in the United States.

In the diaspora, she runs a news website

Camara brought an action against the Gambian state before the Community Court of Justice of the West African Economic Community (ECOWAS) and received a million Dalasi reparations in February 2018. In May 2019 the Gambian government paid her US$25,000.