Sierra Leone ALERT: Newspaper risks legal action for defaming President

The Press Secretary to State House, Sheka Tarawally, on May 6, 2008, threatened New Vision, an independent Freetown-based newspaper, with legal action if the paper failed to retract three articles it published accusing President Ernest Bai Koroma of being wasteful.

Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)'s correspondent reported that Tarawally lodged a formal complaint to the Independent Media Commission (IMC), Sierra Leone's media regulatory body, calling on it to urge New Vision to retract the articles within three days or face legal action.

The first article, published on May 2 accused President Koroma of spending US$102m on unnecessary travelling. On May 5 and 6 the newspaper again published articles repeating the allegations and stating that New Vision stood by the reports.

In the complaint, the Press Secretary claimed that there had been no attempts by New Vision to cross check the information, and the story should therefore be regarded as "malicious and calculated to damage the image of the President".

Tarawally also stated that "all the insinuations in the offending articles are false" and concluded that New Vision had violated sections of the 1965 Public Order Act.

The IMC is a media regulatory body, which has no judicial powers, but provides a platform for negotiations between aggrieved persons and media houses to reduce using law courts to settle media related cases.

MFWA regrets that such threats come at a time when the new government of Sierra Leone has expressed its intention to repeal sections of the obnoxious and archaic Public Order Act, which authorise jail terms of up to seven years for those who criticise government officials.

Media Foundation for West Africa