Liberia’s journalists wary as authorities announce new press passes, threaten shutdowns

When the coronavirus arrived in Liberia, local journalists knew what it meant to report on a deadly, infectious disease; six years earlier they had donned personal protective equipment (PPE) to report on the Ebola crisis, Musa Kenneh, the Press Union of Liberia’s secretary general, told Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

But this time, Kenneh said, threatening comments from government officials have added more hazard to a dangerous job.

“We are risking our lives moving from place to place, villages, reporting to the people, educating the public about COVID-19…[and] instead of complimenting us for what we’re doing, the government is coming back to fight us,” Kenneh said.

On April 29, Liberia’s solicitor general, Sayma Syrenius Cephus, told local reporters that the government would shut down news outlets and seize equipment from journalists alleged to have disseminated “fake news.”

The justification, Cephus told CPJ during two phone interviews in early May, was legally grounded in Liberia’s COVID-19-related state of emergency, which began on April 11 and “suspended” freedom of expression.

“You cannot have 100 percent rights that you may exercise during normal times…Liberia is technically at war [with COVID-19],” Cephus said. The government had so far been “exercising tolerance,” and any shutdown or seizure would require a judicial warrant and could subsequently be challenged in court, he said.

Article 15 of Liberia’s constitution, which CPJ reviewed, protects freedom of expression “save during an emergency” and Article 86 affords presidential power to “suspend or affect certain rights, freedoms and guarantees” when a state of emergency is declared.

“All they [the government] want to do is be discretionary in determining what is false news or not,” Kenneh told CPJ. The press union has “zero tolerance” for false news and views government regulation as a threat to journalistic independence, instead calling for authorities to respect the media’s existing self-regulation processes, Kenneh said.

The same day, April 29, Deputy Information Minister Eugene Fahngon told reporters that existing press passes, which journalists use to move freely amid the lockdown, would be voided and new ones issued, local media reported.

Fahngon’s comments have caused confusion as well as concrete problems for journalists. CPJ spoke to three Liberian journalists who were stopped in Monrovia by security forces and told they could not move around without the new pass designated by Fahngon.

CPJ’s calls to Moses Carter, spokesperson for Liberia national police, and presidential adviser Nathaniel McGill, went unanswered. CPJ exchanged messages with Fahngon on May 6 about a time to speak, but subsequent messages and calls went unanswered.

Kenneh told CPJ he remembered how some Liberians didn’t believe that Ebola was real and how journalists worked to inform them; now journalists are trying to play the same role, while taking similar precautions to protect themselves using protective gear like face masks and gloves. (CPJ)