Liberia / Africa

  
FrontPageAfrica publisher Rodney Sieh, pictured on his release from prison in November 2013. Sieh says journalists in Liberia continue to face threats and harassment for their critical reporting. (AP/Mark Darrough)

Q&A: Rodney Sieh on how Liberia’s press is faring under Weah presidency

Rodney Sieh, editor-in-chief and publisher of Liberian investigative outlet FrontPageAfrica, knows first-hand the harassment and risks critical journalists in his country face. In 2013, CPJ documented how he was sentenced to prison over unpaid fines in a criminal defamation case.

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A view of Liberia's capital, Monrovia, in October 2017. Police are investigating the death of a journalist found stabbed outside his home in the city. (AFP/Issouf Sanogo)

Journalist found stabbed and killed in Liberia

New York, April 18, 2018–Liberian authorities should thoroughly investigate the killing of Tyron Brown, a video editor and camera operator with Super Communications, a privately owned outlet that runs Super FM and Super Television, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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Liberia's President George Weah speaks during his swearing-in ceremony at Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex in Monrovia, Liberia on January 22, 2018. One of the plaintiffs in a US$1.8 million civil defamation lawsuit against Front Page Africa was previously affiliated with Weah's Coalition for Democratic Change party. (Reuters/Thierry Gouegnon)

Liberia should reform libel laws in wake of $1.8 million civil lawsuit against Front Page Africa

New York, April 11, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed concern over a US$1.8 million 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.

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Liberian newspaper publisher arrested over civil libel case

Philipbert Browne, the publisher of Liberia’s Hot Pepper newspaper, was arrested at his office and jailed at the Monrovia Central Prison in the Liberian capital on October 7, 2016, for libel on the orders of a Civil Law Court over a story in his paper titled, “During Ebola Time: ‘I Lost My Virginity'” published the…

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Liberia journalist detained for republishing story about president of Equatorial Guinea

Plainclothes police officers on September 15, 2016, detained Festus Poquie, a journalist with Liberia’s New Democrat newspaper, from his office and took him to the Liberia National Police headquarters in the capital Monrovia, where he was detained and interrogated for several hours.

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Liberia forces critical radio station Voice FM to stop broadcasting

Nairobi, July 7, 2016–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the decision by Liberian authorities to shut down the privately owned station Voice FM and called on the government today to allow the station to resume broadcasting immediately.

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Liberian journalist beaten for refusing to delete video

Three men beat Wremongar Joe, a journalist with the radio station Prime FM, in Buchanan, some 60 miles (100 kilometres) southeast of the capital Monrovia, on May 7, 2016, after the journalist refused to delete a video of a brawl between a lawmaker and other spectators during a football match, according to media reports.

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A man walks past a burial report including known Ebola cases at the Western area emergency response center in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on December 16, 2014. (Reuters/Baz Ratner)

Amid Ebola outbreak, West African governments try to isolate media

On the first Saturday of November 2014, when media owner and broadcaster David Tam Baryoh switched on the mic for his weekly “Monologue” show on independent Citizen FM in Freetown, Sierra Leone, he had no idea that criticizing the government’s handling of Ebola would mean 11 days in jail.

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Liberians wash at an Ebola information station in Monrovia. The government has implemented restrictions on journalists reporting on the outbreak. (AFP/Pascal Guyot)

In Ebola-stricken countries, authorities and journalists should work together

The Ebola crisis in West Africa is unrelenting, and journalists on the frontline of reporting on the virus are caught between authorities wanting to control how the outbreak is reported, and falling victim to the disease themselves.

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Security forces guard a checkpoint in an area of Monrovia that was in quarantine for several days as part of government efforts to try to contain Ebola in Liberia. (Reuters)

In attempts to contain Ebola, Liberia censors its press

With the Ebola epidemic predicted to get worse, the Liberian government has taken action to silence news outlets critical of its handling of the health crisis which, according to Liberia’s Information Ministry, has claimed more than 1,000 lives in the country since March. Publishers have been harassed and forced to cease printing, and journalists were…

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