His Excellency Ahmad Tejan Kabbah
Office of the President
State House
15 Siaka Steven Street
Freetown
Sierra Leone

Fax: +232 22 231 404

Vienna, 4 July 2005

Your Excellency,

We are writing on behalf of the International Press Institute (IPI) and the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), to call for the repeal of Sierra Leone’s seditious libel law under which Paul Kamara, editor of For Di People, is currently imprisoned.

In October 2004, Mr Kamara, editor and publisher of the independent daily For Di People, was convicted on two counts of seditious libel for articles that appeared in his newspaper focusing on a 1967 Commission of Inquiry, which reportedly implicated you in the embezzlement of public funds. He was sentenced to two concurrent prison terms, of two years each, and has spent much of his sentence in solitary confinement.

Since Mr Kamara’s conviction, his lawyer, Joseph Cole, has encountered repeated obstacles in trying to file an appeal and securing bail for his client. Despite filing the relevant documents with the Appeals Court on 22 October 2004, Mr Cole is still awaiting a response and no date has been set for a hearing.

We are seriously concerned at what appears to be a concerted effort by the state to deny Mr Kamara due process of law.

We respectfully remind you that prosecution for seditious libel under the 1965 Public Order Act is in clear breach of section 25(1) of the 1991 Sierra Leone Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression. It is only through the inclusion of a second provision unnecessarily limiting this freedom that prosecution for seditious libel is possible.

In addition, the Truth & Reconciliation Commission has described the Public Order Act as unconstitutional and calls for its repeal or amendment. Its seditious libel provisions are also inconsistent with your government’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We respectfully call on you to do everything possible to ensure that Mr Kamara is immediately released from jail and that all criminal charges against him are dropped.

We urge you to take all necessary steps to ensure that the seditious libel provisions are repealed and that in future your country fully observes international standards of freedom of expression.

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director, International Press Institute (IPI)

Timothy Balding
Director General, World Association of Newspapers (WAN)

cc :

Mr Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, United Nations

Mr Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General, UNESCO

IPI, the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, is dedicated to the furtherance and safeguarding of press freedom, the protection of freedom of opinion and expression, the promotion of the free flow of news and information, and the improvement of the practices of journalism.

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The Paris-based WAN defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 72 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 100 countries, 13 news agencies and nine regional and world-wide press groups.