David Tam Baryoh: jailed over opposition criticism of President Koroma

Sierra Leone said Wednesday it was holding a journalist in a maximum security prison after a guest on his radio show criticised President Ernest Bai Koroma’s handling of the Ebola outbreak.

David Tam Baryoh, host of the weekly “Monologue” programme on the private Citizen FM, was arrested on Tuesday and sent to Freetown’s notorious Pademba Road jail.

“The detention came from an executive order which was signed by President Ernest Koroma and it was executed by the police,” said government spokesman Abdulai Bayratay.

“The president has the power to do this under the public order state of emergency regulations which were approved by parliament in July…. In essence some freedom and civic freedoms have been curtailed.”

The arrest followed Baryoh’s show being taken off air during a live broadcast on November 1, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), citing local media.

Baryoh had interviewed an opposition party spokesman who criticised Koroma and his government’s handling of the Ebola outbreak.

The host and his guest both also criticised Koroma’s intention to run for a third term in office, according to local media.

Bayratay didn’t specify the charges against Baryoh but said anyone who “obstructs, incites or has the tendency to undermine the efforts of government” to fight the epidemic is liable for arrest.

Pademba Road was built for 324 inmates but currently houses around 1,200. Government health experts have linked deaths among prisoners to acute malnutrition, lack of hygienic conditions, malaria and heart failure.

President Koroma: showing intolerance to media criticisms

Baryoh suffers from high blood pressure, according to the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, which urged the authorities to provide “urgent medical attention”.

The organisation said Baryoh had been examined in custody by a doctor who was recommending that he be placed in hospital “to avoid a crisis”.

Sierra Leone is one of the nations worst affected by the largest Ebola outbreak on record, with more than 1,500 deaths.

“Sierra Leone’s genuine state of emergency means that critical thinking and public debate are more important than ever. Locking away journalists without charge helps nobody,” said Peter Nkanga, the CPJ’s west Africa representative.

“We call on President Ernest Bai Koroma to ensure that David Tam Baryoh is released immediately and that journalists are allowed to do their jobs freely.”

Last month, President Koroma had also charged two detained reporters with sedition and libel in connection with a story criticizing President Ernest Bai Koroma.

According to CPJ, Police in the capital, Freetown, arrested Jonathan Leigh, publisher of the daily Independent Observer, and Bai Bai Sesay, the paper’s editor, on Friday, according to news reports.

The two were charged with 26 counts of seditious and defamatory libel against Koroma. Kelvin Lewis, president of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), told CPJ that the journalists face up to three years in jail if convicted.

Leigh and Sesay were charged under the 1965 Public Order Act, under which any person who prints, publishes, sells, or distributes any publication deemed seditious can be fined and handed prison terms of up to seven years. The journalists are being held at Pademba Road maximum-security prison. Their next court appearance is scheduled for October 29, news reports said.

The charges stemmed from an October 17 opinion article, called “Who is Molesting Who: the President or the VP?” published in the Independent Observer. The article likened the president to a rat and dictator, according to CPJ’s review.

It also criticized Koroma in connection with his widely reported feud with Vice President Sam Sumana.