Rodney Sieh, the publisher of FrontPage Africa, was put behind bars on 21 August 2013 after a court enforced a ruling that he pay $1.5 million in damages in a libel suit, which he cannot afford.
UPDATE from Committee to Protect Journalists: Liberian news outlet shut down, publisher jailed (23 August 2013)
On 21 August 2013, Rodney Sieh, publisher of FrontPage Africa, was put behind bars at the Monrovia Central Prison. Sieh could not afford to pay a bail bond of US $375,000. The publisher was furthermore unable to say when he would be able to pay the balance of US $1.5 million in damages, in a libel case that dates back to 2010.
After a lengthy standoff between police and sympathizers, Sieh was finally escorted by police to the Central Prison.
On 20 August, the Civil Law Court ordered Sieh’s arrest in a bid to enforce the Supreme Court’s ruling that he pay US $1.5 million in damages to former Agriculture Minister Chris Toe. FrontPage Africa claims that its offices were searched in the days preceding Sieh’s eventual incarceration.
The matter was originally ruled on by a lower court in 2010. It found the newspaper guilty of libeling former Agriculture Minister Chris Toe. Said ruling stated that the paper failed to substantiate its claims that the minister diverted millions of dollars intended to fight an army worm epidemic in two regions of Liberia.
Last month, the Liberian Supreme Court ruled that the publication should pay the fine. On 16 August, a lower court judge cleared the way for Toe’s lawyers to begin enforcing the judgment.
Rodney Sieh maintains that the offending news story was based on documents obtained from the General Auditing Commission.
Media rights stakeholders – including the Center for Media Studies and Peacebuilding (CEMESP) – are appalled by this development. Last year, Liberia signed on to the Declaration of Table Mountain – which decriminalizes media offenses – and instead began resorting to onerous civil law court fines. This amounts to political double-speak, say various civil liberty activists in the country.
FrontPage Africa, in partnership with CEMESP and the Media Legal Defence Initiative, is making frantic efforts to seek redress in this matter at the The Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) court of justice in Abuja, Nigeria.
