Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by the July 28 death of independent newspaper editor Harry Yansaneh. An autopsy attributed Yansaneh’s death to kidney failure. Yansaneh, acting editor of the daily For Di People, was assaulted on May 10 by a group of attackers. Prior to his death, Yansaneh alleged that Member of Parliament Fatmata Hassan had ordered the attack, according to local sources and press freedom organizations. Hassan, a member of your Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), was seeking at the time to evict For Di People and five other independent newspapers from the office space they had rented from her family for many years. The other newspapers were The Independent Observer, The Pool, The African Champion, The Pioneer and The Progress.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned that imprisoned journalist Paul Kamara has been denied due process of law. Administrative obstacles have prevented his appeal from being heard, according to his lawyer, and Kamara has now served more than eight months of a two-year prison sentence. His family and friends say he was transferred to solitary confinement four months ago.
New York, May 25, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the criminal charges brought today against two journalists from the private weekly newspaper Trumpet. Managing editor Sydney Pratt and reporter Dennis Jones were arrested yesterday and were being held at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in the capital, Freetown, where the paper is based. Both…
MAY 24, 2005 Updated on June 13, 2005 Sydney Pratt, The Trumpet Dennis Jones, The Trumpet LEGAL ACTION, IMPRISONED Criminal charges were brought against managing editor Pratt and reporter Jones, of the private weekly The Trumpet. The journalists were arrested and held at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in the capital, Freetown, where the paper…
Overviewby Julia Crawford With the rule of law weak in many African countries, journalists regularly battle threats and harassment, not only from governments but also from rogue elements, such as militias. Repressive legislation is used in many countries to silence journalists who write about sensitive topics such as corruption, mismanagement, and human rights abuses. If…
Sierra Leone Sierra Leone has continued its efforts to rebuild after a brutal, decade-long civil war officially ended in January 2002. In May 2004, the West African country held its first local elections in more than 30 years. In June, a U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal began trying senior government and rebel military leaders.
FEBRUARY 11, 2005 Posted: February 16, 2005 Olu Gordon, The Peep IMPRISONED Gordon, editor of the semiweekly satirical newspaper The Peep, was summoned to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), where he was held in connection with an article that appeared in The Peep that day, according to local journalists.
JANUARY 14, 2005 Posted: January 27, 2005 Philip Neville, The Standard Times Unissa Bangura, The Standard Times The Standard TimesHARASSED Detectives from the government’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) raided the offices of the privately owned Standard Times in the capital, Freetown, and closed the paper for a day, according to the newspaper’s staff. The detectives searched…
The Toll: 1995-2004 Each year in January, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) publishes a list of journalists killed in the line of duty around the world. This list has become the most widely cited press freedom statistic and is often seen as a barometer of the state of global press freedom. While the correlation…