“vigilance plan” to prevent serious human rights abuses and environmental damage in relation to their own activities and those of subsidiaries and other established business relations, and subjecting them to fines for non-compliance. In addition, any inadequacy in the plan which leads to human rights abuses could be used by victims to claim damages against the company before a French court. At the end of the year, the bill was pending before the Senate. ARMS TRADE In June a Palestinian family lodged a complaint against French company Exxelia Technologies for complicity in manslaughter and war crimes in Gaza. In 2014, three of the family’s sons were killed by a missile fired at their house in Gaza City by Israeli forces. According to subsequent investigations, a component of the missile had been manufactured by Exxelia Technologies. France remained the fourth largest arms exporter in the world, selling to countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt. 1. Upturned lives: The disproportionate impact of France’s state of emergency (EUR 21/3364/2016) GAMBIA Islamic Republic of the Gambia Head of state and government: Yahya Jammeh Restrictive laws continued to curb the right to freedom of expression. Peaceful protests were violently repressed, and arrested demonstrators were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment. At least three government critics died in custody, including one tortured to death shortly after arrest. At least five men arrested in 2015 remained subject to enforced disappearance. BACKGROUND Adama Barrow, the opposition coalition candidate, won presidential elections held on 162 1 December. President Jammeh rejected the election results on 9 December. On 13 December, security forces evicted the Independent Electoral Commission chairman and his staff from their headquarters. On the same day, President Jammeh’s party, the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC), filed a challenge to the election results in the Supreme Court. Hearing the case would have required President Jammeh to appoint new judges; therefore the Gambian Bar Association described the appeal as “fundamentally tainted”. His refusal to accept the election results was widely condemned internationally, including by the UN Security Council, the AU and ECOWAS. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION Restrictive laws continued to curb the right to freedom of expression. They included laws banning criticism of officials, laws prohibiting the publication of false news and colonial-era laws on sedition. Journalists operated in a climate of self-censorship following past crackdowns on media workers and human rights defenders. In December 2015 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention stated that journalist Alagie Abdoulie Ceesay, Managing Director of the independent radio station Teranga FM, had been arbitrarily deprived of liberty since his arrest in July 2015 on charges of sedition. The Working Group called for his immediate release, compensation and an investigation by the UN Special Rapporteur on torture. In April, Alagie Abdoulie Ceesay escaped from custody. On 8 November, Momodou Sabally, Director of the Gambia Radio and Television Services, and reporter Bakary Fatty, were arrested by agents from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). Bakary Fatty remained in detention without charge and with no access to his family or a lawyer. Momodou Sabally was recharged for various economic offences which had previously been dropped in 2015. The two men appeared to have been arrested after airing Amnesty International Report 2016/17