President Ernest Bai Koroma State House Freetown, Sierra Leone Vienna, Nov. 16, 2012 Dear President Ernest Bai Koroma, Your Excellency, I am writing today from the International Press Institute in Vienna, Austria to respectfully request that your government ensure that journalists covering tomorrow’s election are able to do so without fear of harassment, violence or […]

The International Press Institute’s executive director, Alison Bethel McKenzie, today issued an open letter to Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma urging him and the government to enact the long-awaited Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill. The bill, which would give Sierra Leoneans the right to access information from public institutions, has been several years in […]

Sierra Leone’s Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a case for the repeal of criminal and seditious libel brought by the country’s national journalists’ association in February 2008, ruling that the provisions are in line with the country’s 1991 constitution and that “journalists are under no imminent threat,” IPI member Ibrahim Bah, Executive Director of […]

Despite numerous efforts by the international community to convince the Sierra Leonean government to release Paul Kamara, the For Di People editor and publisher remains in prison. On 5 October 2004, Justice A.B. Rashid found Paul Kamara, editor and publisher of the independent daily For Di People, guilty on two counts of seditious libel. Rashid […]