A prominent member of Gambia’s main opposition party has been sentenced to a year of hard labour on charges of “unlawful assembly”. The Media Foundation for West Africa suggested that the imprisonment of Femi Peters, campaign manager for the United Democratic Party, was an attempt by the government to weaken the opposition ahead of next year’s election. Peters vehemently denied the charges, which followed a meeting organised by the defendant without the approval of the country’s inspector general. Meanwhile, an exiled Gambian journalist claims he received death threats last week from the African country’s feared National Intelligence Agency. Yusupha Cham says he was threatened by the presidential security agency after criticising President Yahya Jammeh in a series of articles on Gambian news websites.