Liberian Lawyer Accuses President Sirleaf Govt

By Hawa Wesseh

A prominent Liberian human rights lawyer and former Minister of Works in the Sirleaf Unity Party (UP) led administration has accused the Liberian government of being behind the incarceration of FrontPage Africa editor Rodney Sieh. Samuel Kofi woods spoke recently when Justice Minister Christina Tah and Liberia Solicitor General Cllr. Betty Larmie Blamo rubbished attempts by Woods to represent Sieh at the ECOWAS Human Rights Court in Abuja Nigeria. The libel case which has drawn international disapproval from Roy Gutterman, Director of the Tully Center for Free Speech, The World Newspapers Association, the World Editor Forum and the Committee to Protect Journalist, pundits say shows the UP led administration intolerance towards the free press in Liberia. Sieh was arrested on the 21 of August and is currently under heavy security guards at the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Medical Hospital in the Liberian capital of Monrovia. Sieh began a hunger strike about a week ago at the Monrovia Central Prison before he was admitted at the sanatorium for malaria.

Liberian Journalists still hounded

Police chief, Chris Massaquoi

By ralph geeplay

Liberian journalists today are still facing the heavy hand of the law from the Liberian government in an era when press freedom is a heavily touted word in post war Liberia. The Press Union of Liberia (PUL) recently was forced to decry the manner in which a journalist was battered without due process, and incarcerated while another was languishing in jail.

In a statement it released to the public to express its displeasure the union said Liberia’s Police Inspector General affected an order on “Friday, October 12, 2012 after the journalist allegedly took his photograph on the ground of the Temple of Justice on Capitol Hill.” The Temple of Justice housed the Liberian Supreme Court.