Freedom of Speech Threatened Amidst Ebola Crisis
On November 4, 2014, David Tam-Baryoh, a well-known journalist in Sierra Leone, was arrested and jailed in the capital city of Freetown under emergency measures introduced to help the country combat Ebola. Although police forces did not detail or even submit official charges against Tam-Baryoh, it was revealed that they came from an executive order from President Ernest Bai Koroma.
It is worth noting that Koroma had used the emergency powers given to him to respond to the Ebola crisis, suggesting a new threat on the freedom of speech in a Sierra Leone that has come with the crisis on national health. The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists condemned this action and speculated that the arrest was a consequence of Tam-Baryoh’s criticism of the government’s management Ebola of the health crisis during his radio program “Monologue.”
As part of the emergency procedures to control and weaken the Ebola outbreak in the country, the president was granted According to Kevin Lewis, President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, President Koroma’s emergency powers were “wide-ranging,” to the extent that it could even “include the arrest of any person without court order”. These emergency powers were cited in the arrest of Tam-Baryoh, but no official charges have been filed against him. Nevertheless, police and government forces have decided to imprison him in the high-security prison of Bamenda. Moreover, the treatment he is receiving is far from correct and the few journalists that have been able to see him have denounced the deterioration of his physical health condition.
This is not Tam-Baryoh’s first incident with the Sierra Leone government. In May 2014, his radio program Monologue, in which Tam-Baryoh discusses political problems facing Sierra Leone, was taken off the air for two months, as Tam-Baryoh was accused of making “unsubstantiated” claims about the Military and Defense ministers that bordered breaching national security, according to Rod Mac-Johnson, Chairman of the Independent Media Commission in Sierra Leone. As Monologue is the most popular radio show in the country in terms of the number of listeners, its ban can be seen as a revelation Sierra Leone officials’ management of political dissidents.
International newspapers and institutions such as the BBC and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPP) have called on the government to free Tam-Baryoh and have stressed the importance of critical thinking and debate in situations of crisis such as the one that Sierra Leone is currently going through. Moreover, local newspaper editor Mohammed Massaquoi stated that the country is undergoing a health emergency and not a public emergency--emphasizing the importance that civil rights be untouched in a situation like this, in which transparency should be the reigning element instead. “It is shameful for the government to be arresting people that are simply stating facts,” he added.
The journalism community hopes for an immediate release of Tam-Baryoh, despite police officials saying the he will only be freed by another presidential executive order.
Ebola has already caused many social problems and even more deaths in Sierra Leone alone. It should not be the trigger for structural problems related to people’s freedoms and rights, which have taken a long time to cultivate and achieve through people’s suffering.