By Amin Kef Sesay
Ahmed Sahid Nasralla, the President of SLAJ President, has officially launched the State of Media Freedom in Sierra Leone 2018-2020 Report put together by the Media Reform Coordinating Group (MRCG) with support from the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).
The report contains an overview of laws, policies, and institutions governing the media space in Sierra Leone; key press freedom and safety of journalists’ issues; summary of press freedom violations recorded over the period, analysis of trends of violations, key perpetrators and victims; status of redress of violations; and recommendations to both governmental and non-governmental stakeholders on how to improve the situation.
The report reviews the arrests and detentions of journalists over the years using criminal and seditious libel laws in Part V ‘Defamatory and Seditions Libel Defamation’ of the Public Order Act (POA) of 1965 (No. 46 1965), before the said laws were repealed.
Nasralla, before launching the report, called on journalists to be professional and to adhere to the ethics and principles of the profession at all times.
“Freedom of speech is not a license to blackmail, assassinate people’s character, and use vulgar language against people. It is a license for you to practice professionally, ethically, and responsibly.”
He noted that one of the biggest achievements for the media in Sierra Leone is the historic repeal of the criminal and seditious libel laws that affected the work of the media.
“I have repeatedly reminded colleagues that even though the criminal libel law is gone, we still have other laws governing the media including the civil libel law.”
As Nasralla launched the report, he called on the Government to review and drop all pending libel cases against journalists since the criminal libel law has been repealed and further urged them to ensure that cases on the assaults, attacks, intimidations, and harassments of journalists be speedily investigated and concluded.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Information and Communications, Mohamed Rahman Swarray, has written to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice in that regard.
