By Rachel Horner and Tanu Jalloh
President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) Monday said the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) impunity index was inaccurate, irrational and unfair to journalism in the country.
Philip Neville said CPJ wants to magnify things, trying to interpret the situation of journalists in the country wrongly.
“They didn't even crosscheck with local journalists or the association in our country. I wonder where they got the figures from,” he said.
He added that although journalists were murdered during the 11-year civil war as reflected in the report, the number did not shoot up to 100. “The inaccuracy of the figure is our concern. We should not be compared to Iraq . We have neither reached a quarter of what happened in Iraq nor have we figures claimed by CPJ,” Neville said.
He said Sierra Leone would never reach the level CPJ has placed it.
Neville said he was expecting CPJ to have said the government has been using the 1965 public order act against journalists in Sierra Leone .
The Committee recently published the impunity index as part of its activities commemorating world press freedom day on May 3, 2008. According to Joel Simon, executive director of CPJ, the Index was compiled by the Committee in countries where governments have consistently failed to solve journalists' murders. It placed Sierra Leone on top of African countries with worst impunity records.
This has generated serious debate. Among those Concord Times accosted is Umaru Fofana, senior journalist and stringer for British Broadcasting Cooperation, BBC who observed that the rating was unfair and must have been put together using old records.
“Agreed that the existence of the seditious libel law inhibits our practice as journalists, but ranking us close to Iraq is unfair. That can only be reflective of Sierra Leone of yester years. That said, we need more freedom that cannot be achieved where libel remains criminal,” he retorted.
Meanwhile, we called up Abi Wright, communications director at CPJ in the United States of America to elicit further reactions regarding comments made by SLAJ and senior journalists in the country, all of them decrying the impunity index.
“ As I mentioned, we are spotlighting countries where there were at least five unsolved journalist murder cases over the last 10 years, from 1998-2007. In Sierra Leone , according to our research, there are 10 unsolved journalist murder cases ,” she said.
Wright further provided some of the data used by CPJ to collate cases of impunity between 1998 and 2007. Below is a list of names of those journalists whose murder, it claimed, have not been solved yet:
James Oguoguo, Concord Times , January 8, 1999, Freetown
Oguoguo, a Nigerian journalist for the independent Concord Times , was murdered by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in Freetown on the evening of January 8. An eyewitness reported that a group of rebels sought out Ogogo at the newspaper's offices on Pademba Road , shouting that they were "looking for the Nigerian journalist."
The rebels tied Ogogo to the back of a truck and dragged him in the direction of the State House. Before reaching the State House, the rebels stopped the truck, untied Ogogo, and told him to start walking. They then opened fire and killed him.
RUF rebels regarded Nigerian journalists as partisans of the Nigerian-led West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG), which was brought in to support government troops in the ongoing civil war in Sierra Leone .
Jenner "J.C." Cole, SKY-FM, January 9, 1999, Freetown
Cole, an on-air broadcaster with the independent radio station SKY-FM, was abducted by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels from his home near Sandars Street in central Freetown . He was being taken along with other captives to an RUF base in the east end of Freetown when a distraction caused by a West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) plane flying overhead allowed the other prisoners to flee.
Cole, who was prevented by the RUF rebels from escaping, was shot dead by his abductors in front of his fiancée. RUF forces reportedly entered Freetown with a list of journalists to be eliminated for what was perceived as "anti-RUF" coverage.
Mabay Kamara, free-lancer, January 9, 1999, Freetown
Kamara, a free-lance reporter who contributed to the now defunct newspaper Vision , was abducted by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels from his house on Soldier Street near the State House in central Freetown and subsequently murdered. A female RUF commander ordered Kamara's abduction, which was witnessed by his wife. Rebels set the Kamara residence on fire before leaving the area.
Mohammed Kamara, SKY-FM, January 9, 1999, Freetown
Kamara, a correspondent for the independent radio station SKY-FM, was shot dead by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels on Siaka Stevens Street in central Freetown . The journalist covered court proceedings, including the treason trials that followed President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah 's reinstatement. Kabbah was ousted by RUF forces in May 1997 and returned to power in March 1998 with the help of the Nigerian-led West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG).
Paul Mansaray, Standard Times , January 9, 1999, Freetown
Mansaray, deputy editor of the independent Standard Times , was murdered by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels at their home in Calaba Town , east of Freetown . His wife, their two young children, and a nephew were also killed. A fellow journalist who was with Mansaray and his family at the time saw the rebels approaching the house and escaped through a window as Mansaray was alerting his family to flee.
The RUF rebels were overheard shouting at Mansaray and threatening him about his journalistic work. They set the house ablaze, firing their weapons into it as it burned to the ground with Mansaray and his family inside.
Myles Tierney, Associated Press Television News , January 10, 1999, Freetown
Tierney, a Nairobi-based television producer for Associated Press Television News (APTV), was killed in Freetown while riding with several other journalists when his vehicle was sprayed with bullets by a man reported to be a Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel. A West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) soldier was in the vehicle with the journalists when an armed man approached them and, after an exchange with the soldier, opened fire on the passengers with a semiautomatic rifle. Tierney was killed instantly. Ian Stewart , 32, APTV West Africa bureau chief, was critically wounded. Nairobi-based AP photographer David Guttenfelder suffered cuts from broken glass.
Munir Turay, free-lancer, January 1999, Freetown
Turay, a free-lance reporter working for the independent newspaper Punch and the state-owned Daily Mail , as well as the state-owned Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service, was killed sometime between January 9 and January 15 in Kissy, in Freetown's east end. The exact circumstances of his death are unknown, but colleagues who attended his funeral on February 9 reported that he had bullet holes in his back.
At that time, rebel forces, consisting of members of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and renegade soldiers of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, were systematically murdering journalists, and Turay's colleagues did not doubt that he had been killed for his work.
Alpha Amadu Bah, Independent Observer , January 17, 1999, Freetown
Amadu Bah, a sports reporter for the daily Independent Observer , was killed by a group of about 20 rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the former Armed Forces Revolutionary Council at his home on Kissy Road in the east end of Freetown .
According to an eyewitness, the rebels who came to Amadu Bah's house asked for a different person, who was out at the time. The rebels then set the house on fire and shot Amadu Bah dead as he was trying to flee. Two of Amadu Bah's colleagues (one of whom witnessed the killing) told CPJ that, considering the rebels' hatred of the press, they were certain that he had been killed because he was a journalist.
Abdulai Jumah Jalloh, African Champion , February 3, 1999, Freetown
Jalloh, news editor of the independent newspaper African Champion , was killed by a West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) soldier in central Freetown , according to local journalists. Jalloh and the newspaper's editor, Mohammed D. Koroma, were on their way to a printing company near the state house when a passerby claimed—in the presence of ECOMOG soldiers—that Jalloh was a Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel and accused him of arson. Jalloh denied the charge, as did Koroma, who told the ECOMOG soldiers that RUF rebels had burned Jalloh's house.
The soldiers warned Koroma not to continue defending Jalloh. An unidentified ECOMOG officer then took Jalloh aside and executed him at point-blank range.
Conrad Roy, Expo Times , April 30, 1999, Freetown
Roy, former news editor of the banned Expo Times newspaper, died after contracting tuberculosis in Freetown 's central prison. The Sierra Leonean government closed the newspaper in 1997, claiming that it was run by sympathizers of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel movement.
In December 1998, Roy appeared at the magistrate's court, where he was convicted of treason, aiding and abetting the enemy, and conspiring to overthrow the government. Roy was released from prison during the RUF occupation of Freetown in January 1999. After RUF forces retreated from the city in February, soldiers of the Nigerian-led peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) rearrested him. Roy contracted tuberculosis in prison. He received no medical treatment until April 26, four days before his death in Lakka TB Hospital, 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of Freetown.
