2019 World Press Freedom Day
Salutations🙌
Mr Chairman, Dr Francis Sowa The Minister of Information, Your excellencies the EU and Irish ambassadors, President Bar Association, Senior Mass Communications Lecturer Tonya Musa,
Honourable Members of Parliament, Ministers of Government here present
Your excellency the British High Commissioner, other ambassadors and members of the Diplomatic Corps, other dignitaries colleagues and members of SLAJ all other protocols respectfully observed. Good morning.
let me thank you all for coming. Mr Chairman with your permission let me ask all of us to stand and observe a minute of silence for our departed colleagues, prominent among whom is the renowned broadcaster Gipu Felix George, and not forgetting journalist Ibrahim Samura for whom we still continue to ask for justice.
May the Souls of all the faithful departed rest in Peace. You can now take your seats
Mr Chairman the global theme for the World Press Freedom Day 2019 as prescribed by UNESCO the foremost UN institution for promoting free expression is “Media for Democracy: Journalism and Elections in Times of Disinformation.” However for us in Sierra Leone the most pressing issue is the repeal of the Criminal Libel laws, which is largely being resisted because of criticisms on the quality of journalism in the country. hence we have decided to come home and to instead use the theme “Criminal Libel and Quality of journalism as our theme for commemorating the World Press Freedom Day 2019.
History of Criminal Libel
Mr Chairman through interviews I have learnt that in 1965 the then Prime Minister Sir Albert Margai wanted to pass a bill to turn the country into a one party state. There was opposition to this move from the politicians, but he feared the media most because journalists were unrelenting in their opposition to a one party state. The Prime Minister himself a lawyer, re-arranged the criminal and seditious libel laws such that what we have now is a law which does not recognise truth as a defence and the only which considers you as guilty and you have to prove yourself.
Mr Chairman from primary school right through secondary school and University our teachers have impressed on our minds that we should always tell the truth. Even in Church our pastors Reverends and Bishops constantly preach to us about the truth and the bible says in John chapter 8 verse 32 that “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Sadly the Criminal and seditious Libel laws speaks differently.
Mr Chairman, as one would expect, the first casualty was the Editor of the Patriotic Newspaper Dr Sam Hollist. Since then several journalist’s have fallen foul of its use by successive governments. Because of time I would give a few examples of our run-in with the Criminal Libel laws
Under the APC of Siaka Stevens, the politicians developed a new use of the Criminal Libel laws. The police usually visit the newspaper and arrests the journalist at about 4 to 5 pm on a friday when the courts have closed. The journalist is then released on Monday after the politician would have been satisfied that he had locked the journalist up. To date this is the pattern. In the 1980’s Paul Kamara of For Di People was a frequent victim of that.
In November 2013 Labor Fofanah of the Voice Newspaper wrote “APC Minister sacks Personal Assistant for money. He was arrested on a Friday and arraigned in Court. The case was not heard and he was not given bail. He spent the weekend in jail and on Monday he was given bail of One Billion Leones. By the time we processed the bail papers it was too late. He spent Monday again in jail and was released on Tuesday. That was when I got to know Labor Fofanah and the Minister Kemoh Sesay had been class mates at Fourah Bay College.
The case of Sam Lahai again and the then deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Rtd. Major Sengu Koroma. The police took in Sam Lahai for questioning and they kept him for the whole weekend because he questioned the action of the Minister to invite the Finance officer of the local council to report to him in his house. One would have thought that was basically asking for accountability. On Monday I was guest at 98.1 FM, when they called the Minister to get his own side. That was when he said on air, that Sam Lahai was his small brother and he no longer had any problems with him. Meanwhile the young man had spent 3 nights at the cells in the CID under charges of criminal libel against the minister and I had to sign a Le20 million bail bond for him as surety.
But it is not all just keeping journalists in the cells. Paul Kamara for calling President Kabbah a Criminal who had been found guilty by a commission of Enquiry was actually taken to court, convicted and spent 14 months in prison. He won his appeal and was later released. Since then he has not been the same person again. But it was not Paul Kamara alone. The Owner of the John Love Printing Press where Paul had printed the offending newspaper was also jailed with him. The owner was a widower who did not know anything about what was printed. By the time she came out of prison the business had collapsed. She was broken and she sold out. That is the building now occupied by Virtues Funeral services off Circular Road. The effect was that no commercial printer would print any newspaper again.
It was the same for the new Breed Newspaper by then edited by Dr Spencer and a then small boy reporter who later became the Minister of Information and now APC Member of parliament Hon. Mohamed Bangura spent weeks in jail. There crime was a culled article from a Swedish newspaper “Expressen” asking questions about the sale of diamonds allegedly by the then Military head of State Capt Strasser. The journalists spent nights in jail but the manager of by then the biggest printing press in the country and locally owned by Sierra Leoneans was also charged. After they were released the printing press broke down and went out of business. Again Commercial printers refused to print newspapers. It was for the new breed case that a vendor was also arrested. Showing the full extent to which the Criminal libel law could be used to clamp down heavily on free expression.
I will not go into the case of Jonathan leigh and Baibai Sesay charged with 26 counts of seditious libel for an article titled “Who is molesting who … the President or the VP.” They were held for more than 72 hours without charge and when they knew we were preparing a habeas corpus they took them to court after 5 pm and we left the court room at night. The following week we went to the magistrate court, only for us to be directed to the high court. We had a one day news blackout called black Tuesday and eventually 25 counts were dropped and they were told to plead guilty on the remaining one count of criminal libel, and the judge released them with a warning. This was a case of utmost misuse and abuse of State power, using the criminal and seditious libel laws.
There are many more cases. The case of David Tam-Baryoh during the ebola emergency, the case of David Tam Baryoh again and Transport Minster Balogun Koroma, Jonathan leigh and Momoh Konte, Jonathan leigh and Information Minister Alpha Khan, so many more.
Mr Chairman the point here is the politicians will continue jailing journalist and things will never change. It is the same politicians who pay the rogue journalists to write about other politicians. The serious journalists are not involved in that. But the serious journalists are hampered in improving their work because the law drives away investment and investors such that the media is kept in a perpetual cycle of poverty, and when the media is poor those politicians who have money will use them for the wrong purposes.
Let me end with the Truth and Reconciliation report volume 2 chapter three number 75. Which reads
"Freedom of expression is the lifeblood of a democracy. A culture of public debate and tolerance for dissenting ideas is the sign of a vibrant and healthy democracy. Restrictions on the freedom of expression represent a fearful State; it reflects a State that has no confidence in its ability to promote and disseminate its doctrines in the marketplace of ideas.
77 says "The use of sedition and defamation proceedings under the criminal law does not bode well for freedom of expression in Sierra Leone. These provisions are the leftovers of a long gone colonial era. In many countries, laws on sedition and criminal libel have been either formally or effectively abandoned. The only circumstances in which criminal sanctions on free speech can be justified is where an intention to incite violence or lawless conduct has been demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt and where there is a real risk that violence will ensue.
In a “friend of the court” brief submitted on 6 May 2004, the Open Society Justice Initiative urged the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to seize an historic opportunity to advance freedom of expression by outlawing criminal defamation. The brief notes a growing consensus worldwide that criminal defamation statutes hinder free expression. “A society cannot be free if its citizens must avoid criticism of public officials out of fear of criminal prosecution,”.
Mr Chairman we have our challenges, fake news the social media and so on, but today we must defend journalism. There should be no more excuses, the criminal and seditious libel laws must be repealed.
We are heartened that the President said yesterday that he was still committed to the repeal. We however note that Mr President it has been one year. That is how the APC started until it became 10 years. Since you are that “talk and do” president we recognize that you have spoken we now want to see you do it.
End✍️
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