The Northern regional executive of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), has called off an indefinite news blackout on the Sierra Leone Police (SLP), upon the release of their colleague, Sorie Saio Sesay, on bail from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Tuesday, May 31, 2022, in Freetown.
Sesay was arrested by the SLP on Thursday, May 26, 2022, for re-publishing what police referred to as false information on a social media (WhatsApp) forum about an incident that occurred in the northern region headquarters of Makeni, between police and commercial bike riders. The journalist is a senior member of Okentuhun Radio in Kamakwei, and upon his arrest, spent five days in police custody before being released.
The news blackout from the journalists came as a result of what they described as a disrespectful leadership approach by a senior official of the SLP in the region, considering their relationship and the fact that the president of SLAJ, Ahmed Sahid Nasralla, went in person to engage the police regional commander on the release of journalist Sesay.
A press notice from the regional secretariat of SLAJ calling on its membership, particularly station managers, to call off the action against the police, was received with mixed feelings by journalists in the northern region. Because there is an existing MoU between the SLP and the media and the new cybercrime Act under which the said action to arrest the journalist was borrowed, it was not suggested that police should determine whether content published by a journalist is false or not.
The journalists are saying the timeframe under which their colleague was detained and later released cannot be compared to the cancellation of a news blackout on the police in that part of the country. Despite a revoke of the news blackout, the media is considering the actions of the police to arrest and detain a journalist across the country without going through the right channels, including the Independent Media Commission, or the SLAJ disciplinary committee, as a saboteur to the repeal of Part Five of the Public Order Act, as it undermines press freedom and, hence, amounts to censorship of the press.
The journalists have argued that the mere fact of re-publication constitutes a crime, and their colleagues were quick to accept that he did make a genuine mistake in forwarding a message from one WhatsApp group to another without crosschecking. Despite that, the senior management's denial to listen to the president of SLAJ and the media was a dishonest act of the police to openly disrespect their president.
The indefinite news blackout on the police in the northern region has been rescinded but the media are of the view that, subsequently, police need to engage and follow the due process even in the exercise of their duty to protect lives and properties. This is also expected of the journalists in performing their duties. In the spirit of a good working relationship between the police and the media in Sierra Leone, it is expected that in the future, issues of such can be addressed amicably without deciding on a news blackout.
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