Showing posts with label liberia press freedom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberia press freedom. Show all posts

Monday, September 9, 2013

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.

President Sileaf: “Hustlers Become Heroes through Poisonous Pens"


By: Hawa Wesseh

President of the Republic of Liberia Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf sits after her address to world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly.


Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says her public officials are assuming their responsibilities in the country at a time when the political environment is a difficult terrain in the country.
The Liberian president made the remarks this week when she commissioned 27 government executives including former controversial city mayor, Mary Broh who now heads the General Services Agency (GSA), a department of government that purchases and manages assets for the government.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

YESTERDAY PATRIOTS: President Sirleaf and Press Freedom In Liberia!

Hawa Wesseh



Just freed from jail: Sirleaf at the hight of her advocacy for rights in Liberia
 
 
The future belongs to us, because we have taken charge of it. We have the commitment, we have the resourcefulness, and we have the strength … Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Just as last month came to an end two significant concerns popped up in post war Liberia! Depending on which one you want to take first, all 25,000 students sitting the nation’s most prestigious university  entrance exam fail to make a passing mark; it was perhaps the biggest front-page grabber since the Charles Taylor conviction, underscoring Liberia’s rotten education system ( both teachers and students in the country are indiscipline, the government alone cannot take the blame for this one), and there was the incarceration of Frontpage Africa’s editor, Rodney Sieh on woozy libel charges wrapped up in political undertones, according the Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ). Press freedom in Liberia Is under attack, and President Sirleaf is stoking the flames!

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

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.