Dakar, Nov.12 (SLENA) – Authorities in Sierra Leone must drop all charges against two print journalists granted bail on November 4 after 18 days of detention, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has stated. The journalists have been charged with criminal defamation for publishing an article critical of the Sierra Leonean President, Ernest Bai Koroma.

According to the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), an IFJ affiliate, a court in the country has granted bail for journalists Jonathan Leigh and Bai Bai Sesay for the sum of 85.000 Euros (500 million Leones) and two sureties. All their travel documents were also surrendered to the court. They must appear in court on 18 November for trial.

Leigh is the managing editor of the Independent Observer Newspaper and Sesay is the editor. On October 18 police ordered that they go to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to make statements following the publication of an opinion article the day before titled “Who is fooling who,” which was viewed as being critical of the Sierra Leonean President, Ernest Bai Koroma. They were then detained.

“Charges against our two colleagues must be dropped. The authorities must understand that they are assuming challenging tasks via a mandate from the populations. They must accept legitimate criticism,” said Gabriel Baglo, IFJ Africa Director. “We consider this as very paradoxical as on October 31 the President himself gave his assent to the Right to Access Information Act 2013 in a bid to support the government’s policy of implementing reforms to promote and reinforce democracy and good governance,” he added.

The SLAJ said the Independent Media Commission (IMC) released a statement claiming the article to be offensive and invited the two journalists to present themselves to the complaints committee of the commission. While in custody, the journalists received a notice from the President’s lawyer demanding a retraction and an apology. Later they also received papers of a civil summons instituted by the ruling party (All Peoples Congress, APC) claiming civil libel against the editors.

The decision to arrest the journalists follows a series of aggressive government actions against the country’s media.

On Monday, October 21, the offices of the Independent Observer and Premier News newspapers were raided by police, while on Tuesday, October 22, police arrested the proprietors’ editors and managing editors of the Global Times newspaper, Concord Times and Salone Times newspapers. That same Tuesday night, police raided the printing facility of the Concord Times Newspaper due to allegations that they had printed the offending article.

On Wednesday October 23, journalists decided to accompany all the invited editors and managing editors on a peaceful march to the Police Headquarters. While there, the Information Minister called to ask that the journalists disperse from the front of the building and said he had been instructed by the President to “discontinue” all cases apart from the Independent Observer case.

The police took statements from all the journalists and allowed them to go, but at 5pm that day the two editors were taken to court on charges of sedition.

According to the SLAJ, sedition does not fall under the serious offences Act in Sierra Leone which would have allowed the police to keep them for ten days. The union says police violated their human rights by keeping them for six days without charge, which is three days more than the stipulated time of 72hours.

After the 26 count charges had been read in court, the two journalists were denied bail on the flimsy view that if freed they will publish more damaging stories. The case was adjourned to Monday 28th. Again they were refused bail and the case was adjourned again as the State asked for a week to prepare their witnesses.

On that day there was a near complete media shutdown. Over 30 newspapers did not publish except two and those are one owned by the Special Executive Assistant to the President (Awareness Times newspaper) and the other Standard Times owned by Executive editor Philip Neville. Over 80 radio stations around the country also shut down with the exception of two – the state broadcaster SLBC and Star radio, again owned by Philip Neville.

“The media regarded the raids on press houses and the invitation by the police meant that the Sierra Leone media is under attack,” said Kevin Lewis, SLAJ president.