4 May 2011
The 2010 Africa Editor’s enviable Freedom of The Press Award went to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf for being the first sitting president in Africa to legalize the citizens’ unhindered access to public information. It is nearly a full year now since then; but it is still being debated whether the editors had not been hasty. Panelists at yesterday’s World Freedom Day celebration were divided over the range of press freedom in Liberia, notwithstanding the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act and constitutional guarantees. The Analyst, reports.
The celebration of the World Press Freedom Day in Monrovia, yesterday, redrew the limits of the unending debate over the level of the freedom of press, speech, and assembly in Liberia as provided for by law.
The day’s celebration, organized by the Press Union of Liberia (PUL), was held under the theme, “Twenty-first Media: New frontier, New Barriers” with panelists directing discussions on the impact of the law on the Liberian people’s participation in governance and the recovery process.
It was a special edition of the Edward Wilmot Blyden Forum of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL.
Celebration panelists Simeon Freedom of the opposition Movement for Progressive Change (MPC) party and Cllr. Frances Johnson-Morris of the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) presented diametrical views on whether Liberians were free to speak their minds without having to look over their shoulders.
For Mr. Freedom, the force of a statute empowering security forces to forcibly disperse any unauthorized public march have outweighed the provision of the Constitution of Liberia that guarantees the rights of citizens to assemble unhindered in order to petition their government.
In his view, the restrictions that the statute has imposed on demonstrations and public marches have indirectly impeded related rights: freedom of press and speech.
Cllr. Morris, who had served as chief justice and justice minister of Liberia, however thought otherwise. There is, in her view, more to those constitutional guarantees than most Liberians, especially opposition rights advocates, care to explore, understand, and adapt in order to help protect the peace and security of the nation.
Information Minister Cletus Sieh, another panelist agreed with Cllr. Morris; but he thought facts about the freedom of speech and of the press and the right to assemble had been so distorted that it was only fair to regard some advocates as instigators of violence.
The Analyst brings excerpts of these views, beginning with that of Mr. Freeman.
Freeman: openness and free expression are crucial
In a discourse titled, “Openness and Free expression as a value for the implementation of Freedom of Information Regime in Liberia”, the political leader of the opposition MPC said unless citizens spoke and assembled unhindered by restricting statutes, laws guaranteeing their rights to do so were practically non-existent.
He said even though Liberia, like Sweden, has passed laws protecting the rights of citizens to talk, write, and hold public rallies when their freedom and security demand, the government has not yet mustered the political will to let the law prevail in their lives.
According to him, the Liberian government has failed to realize that freedom of speech was the best form of the kind of criticism that exposes errors and reduces the arrogance of the governing elites.
He quoted one Dr. David Brin as describing accountability – an exponent of free speech – as the “light” that protects the people against powerful rulers and their shady deals.
Such light, he said, is often extinguished with the stifling of free speech and the right to hold public rallies in order to petition the governors.
He said governors would however allow the light to shine in order to bring vibrancy to society, when they understood the pains of the governed.
“The very violators of people’s trust must decide whether or not the victims of their actions are worthy of their sympathy. The whole concept of planning routes for a demonstration, with a brutal police force that is part of the governing infrastructure, is a ploy to deprive citizens their freedom to demand openness and leverage free speech. All democratic and civilized societies have no such laws,” he told the gathering comprising government officials, journalists, and representatives of international organizations.
According to him, Liberia’s case of freedom restriction was ironical because the very people who had opposed existing retraining laws were the very ones who are today upholding them in the name of state security and peace.
“Amazingly though, the very leaders of today, posing as liberators of the people yesterday, denounced as wicked, the very laws they find convenient; truly validating the claim that every man or woman can be a tyrant if not checked by accountability, contained in openness and free speech,” he said.
He then accused President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of upholding laws restraining public expression of grievance as a front to conceal the government’s failure to exercise due diligence in the vetting of companies bidding for mineral management contracts in the country. He gave no examples.
The MPC political, who led an aborted public march recently, said instead of the government allowing the people to speak out against perpetrators of corruption in society, it preferred to sponsor LACC’s cost-intensive billboard projects.
He said the government pretended to encourage openness and free expression, but that in reality it was embracing “actions that generate huge unemployment, accelerate hopelessness and grow poverty”.
Part of those ‘actions’, he claimed, was government’s apparent refusal to service its indebtedness to print and electronic media institutions in the country, thereby making them subservient and less critical of the status quo.
“In democratic societies, the media is the purveyor of openness and free expression. When media institutions – print and electronic – are unable to sell more than 300 papers or raise less than US$500 daily; underwriting monthly operational and administrative costs will be greatly undermined, effectively disabling the institution’s capacity to attract qualified personnel and challenging its ability to remain independent,” he said.
But it seemed it was not only the alleged stifling of the Liberian people’s freedom that Mr. Freeman believed was the undoing of the Sirleaf Administration.
He believes also that the government, especially President Sirleaf, has not been treating opposition critics with disrespect, often using invectives against them.
“A President who insults others for questioning her actions, denounce accountability and openness, thereby opening herself to public ridicule. Such a person cannot claim immunity from disrespect and abuse. Madam Ellen Sirleaf, by her own actions, exposes the office of the president to public disrepute and not those reacting to provocation,” he said, provoking reaction from Minister Sieh.
But Cllr. Morris implied that Mr. Freedom’s utterances were the weirdest distortion of events in the country she had ever heard.
Cllr. Morris: Record improvement
Looking back nine years to when the Taylor administration arrested and detained her for several days in a male cell at the National Police Headquarters in Monrovia for the views she expressed while addressing a function of the PUL on freedom of speech and press, Cllr. Morris said Liberia has made a quantum’s jump for the better.
She recalled that at the time, she had questioned the validity of the national state of emergency the administration had imposed on the country, when then existing conditions did not warrant such imposition.
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