(RSF/IFEX) – In a 30 December 1999 letter to Minister of Justice Eddington Varmah, RSF protested the arrest of Sarkilay Kantan and Isaac Menyongai, news editor and reporter, respectively, with the private bi-weekly “Concord Times”. RSF asked the minister to secure their immediate release, and to lift arrest warrants against four other journalists of this […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a 30 December 1999 letter to Minister of Justice Eddington Varmah, RSF protested the arrest of Sarkilay Kantan and Isaac Menyongai, news editor and reporter, respectively, with the private bi-weekly “Concord Times”. RSF asked the minister to secure their immediate release, and to lift arrest warrants against four other journalists of this publication. Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, recalled that “Liberia is one of the last countries in Africa not to have ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” which guarantees freedom of expression.
According to the information gathered by RSF, on 30 December Kantan and Menyongai were arrested by policemen in Monrovia. They are accused of “criminal malevolence” following a complaint lodged by Alexander Kulue, chief of the National Agency For Refugees, who said: “What the newspaper is insinuating is criminal, illegal and deliberately insulting.” The journalists wrote articles about racketeering and corruption in government and state-run companies. An arrest warrant was also issued against four other journalists of the “Concord Times”: Lyndon Ponnie, the managing editor, Sherman Seekuah, editor-in-chief, and two reporters, James King and Togba Tuwray. On 25 November, some of these journalists had received death threats.