Journalist detained for taking police photographs in Makeni

He was seriously manhandled apart from his rights seized and abused on Friday 2nd August. Alie Mozart Sesay a reporter for the prominent Torchlight Newspaper, who is also likely to become one of the country’s finest upcoming investigative Journalists eventually fell in the wicked hands of the Police in Makeni at the Rogbane Police station. Sesay was placed in an open Police detention for almost ten hours because he boldly took photographs of some female officers who were turning the Police station into a salon.

Before his open detention, Sesay encountered some argument and confrontations by the female Officers at the back yard of the Police station who aggressively attacked him of cunningly taking their photographs as they were busy plating the hair of a female CID Officer. One of them was in Police dress and the two were in mufti. After an open challenge had ensued between them, Sesay decided to this time, boldly take another visible photograph with the pretext that the Officers were violating the profession especially within the confines of the Police station which is indeed a public institution and not a salon.

Sesay further wasted no time with the photographs, but directly marched into the Local Unit Commander’s office to lodge a complaint more so when the CID lady was pursuing him. But as bad and gruesome as the Local Unit Commander of that division, Superintendent G.M Turay, he failed to listen to Sesay who in this matter was the complainant, but instead learned from the CID lady who narrated the story as it happened.

However, he was asked by the Crime Officer to apologize to the ladies. According to them, the Journalist was not supposed to have taken their photographs without consenting their knowledge and that he must apoligize. Because the failed to do, a detention order was ushered by the Local Unit Commander who added by stating that he was going to teach the Journalist an unforgotten lesson.

In his words, the LUC quoted a parable in one of the great reggae legend’s song-Bob Marley that “the pits that the Journalist had dug for him, was one of which the Journalist had fallen into.” Wasting no time and whether lawful or unlawful, the LUC ordered that the poor Journalist be investigated, detained in the cells and charged to courtfor taking photographs of his personnel. As a result of that, a quarter of the Police jubilated for the unlawful detention of the Journalist while many were not in absolute favor. But as wise as the Crime Officer-Inspector Kamara, he preferred an open detention for the Journalist which did not further go down well for some wicked and unprofessional Officers.

Further trying to indict the poor Journalist who was however very much confident and less frightened despite the humiliations he faced, a junior officer added, unimportant and irrelevant questions of about nine pages were posed to the poor Journalist only by means of trying to indict him for an unfair jail sentence.

Stubbornly, after the Deputy Internal Affairs Minister-Shaka Tarawallie had made a phone call to the LUC demanding the release ofthe Journalist after ten hours in detention, the LUC responded but further refused to release the mobile phone which the Journalist used to snap the photos, adding that the Journalist must at all cost be investigated and further charged to court, what a malice, some senior Officers queried.

If it were not the gentle and uncompromising interventions of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists Vice President, Mr. Stanley Bangura who prevailed on the LUC, whose further intentions of abusing his office only to unlawfully manhandle the poor Journalist whom he describe as a threat was his next step. In conclusion, the Journalist was forcefully asked to delete the photographs before his mobile phone was handed over to him.

In other words, a bulk of Police Officers, residents and stakeholders in Makeni, have for so long been calling for the withdrawal of the said LUC for what many also describe as his commercial policing styles at the detriment of the ordinary people and his personnel. If time permits, there are very many allegations and evidences against the LUC in that part of the country. One of them is his recent strong warning on the Traffic division in Makeni to completely stop or desist from arresting African Minerals/ADDAX Bio-Energy vehicles that flout the laid down traffic rules . In that capacity, the LUC is now acting in the interest of those Companies instead of the state and the SLP.

More justifications to come up later.

By Abdulai Kamara

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