Committee to Protect Journalists worried about media freedom in Weah-ruled Liberia
One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Henry Morgan, was previously affiliated with the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) party of President George Weah.
China is reportedly one of the few countries who arbitrarily arrests journalists. CPJ.
The Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ) is concerned about the US$1.8-million (R21.5 million) 30 civil defamation lawsuit against Front Page Africa, “a privately owned Liberian newspaper that has long been the subject of complaints and harassment for its critical reporting on successive governments”.
CPJ reported that the lawsuit relates to an advertisement about land administration, a notice of which was disputed, published in March 2018 by Front Page Africa. One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Henry Morgan, was previously affiliated with the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) party of President George Weah.
Morgan reportedly refused to answer questions about his current party affiliation when asked by CPJ.
Rodney Sieh, Front Page Africa‘s owner and a member of CPJ’s Africa advisory group, said he believes the lawsuit and a recent wave of harassment on social media are part of a strategy to silence the newspaper.
“Liberia has a troubling history of libel lawsuits where applicants ask for exorbitant damages simply to harass and intimidate journalists, resulting in their imprisonment or the closure of news outlets,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ Africa program coordinator. “The government should move swiftly to reform Liberia’s libel laws to guard against their abuse in this way.”
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Court sheriffs on April 9 delivered a summons to the newspaper’s Monrovia office, briefly detained at least seven journalists, and temporarily shut down the office, Lennart Dodoo, the news editor of Front Page Africa, told CPJ.
Dodoo said he and six other Front Page Africa staff were held at a Monrovia civil court for three hours in relation to the suit and were released after their lawyer, Pearly Brown Bull, negotiated for a US$350,000 bond to be paid the next day. The staff reopened their offices the same day and the paper has continued to publish, according to Dodoo.
The week before the summons, Jefferson Koijee, a member of Weah’s political party and Monrovia mayor, publicly condemned Front Page Africa‘s critical reporting on the government and lambasted Sieh for “unprofessional attacks on the presidency”, according to media reports.
Furthermore, Sieh told CPJ that a week before the summons was issued, anonymous social media users harassed him and Front Page Africa about the newspaper’s critical reporting and claimed that the paper was anti-government. One post on Facebook threatened arson and included a picture of Sieh’s home, he said.
On the same day as the summons, FPA published on its Facebook page: “[W]e are strongly convinced that the government is definitely behind what happened.”
