H. E. Charles Taylor
President of the Republic of Liberia
Monrovia
Liberia

Vienna, 20 February 1998
Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors and media executives from newspapers, magazines, broadcasting organisations and news agencies in over 100 countries, is most concerned about the Liberian government’s continued refusal to give the New Democrat Weekly a permit to resume publishing.

The New Democrat Weekly existed and was registered with the Ministry of Information before the destruction of the newspaper’s offices in April 1996, when leaders of the warring factions competing for political supremacy in Liberia destroyed all independent media outlets in the capital, Monrovia. The building housing the New Democrat Weekly was razed to the ground, leaving the presses, darkroom and other equipment in ashes. The paper’s computers were looted and sold to offices of the Nigerian Army in the West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG.

The New Democrat Weekly has not been allowed to relaunch its operations due to the Government’s claim that the paper failed to meet a January 1997 deadline, based on a 1972 law which requires all newspapers to register within a certain timeframe.

IPI regards the refusal of the Ministry to give the New Democrat Weekly a permit to be an outright banning and a violation of everyone’s right to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas,” as guaranteed in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We therefore urge Your Excellency to do everything in your power to ensure that the New Democrat Weekly is allowed to immediately resume publishing and that laws and practices restricting the free entry to the field of journalism, or over its practice, are eliminated.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director