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MONROVIA. – Editor of one of Liberia’s leading newspapers said yesterday he had refused a conditional offer of release after he was jailed over reports about government corruption.
Rodney Sieh, who publishes Frontpage Africa, was taken into custody on August 21 following a Supreme Court ruling that the paper should pay US$1,6 million for libelling former agriculture minister J. Chris Toe.
The court ordered that the paper be closed down until the damages are paid in full and Sieh was sent to jail, where he launched a hunger strike and was rushed to hospital on August 27 after a rapid decline in his condition.
“Chris Toe asked me to close my (personal) website for one month and pay his lawyer’s fees, which is US$40 000, before he drops the case. For me that is unacceptable. You can’t ask me to close down my website after you have closed the paper,” Sieh said from his hospital bed.
Toe successfully sued Frontpage after Sieh wrote a series of stories in 2009 accusing the minister of embezzling agriculture ministry funds.
The ex-minister told a news conference last Thursday that he was asking for an apology from Sieh, and “nothing more”.
But Sieh told AFP an apology would be unethical since he had done nothing wrong.
Sieh said doctors were treating him for malaria and he was making a good recovery, although he was still in pain.
Frontpage Africa has been vociferous in its criticism of the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in recent years.
Sieh is expected to remain incarcerated until he pays the damages or Sirleaf intervenes.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has described Sieh’s detention as “disproportionate and tainted with political undertones” and called on Sirleaf to pardon him.
“This is not Rodney Sieh’s fight – this is the fight of every Liberian journalist who wants to operate independently,” the editor said.
“If I succumb, tomorrow there will be no critical paper in Liberia. If there is no critical paper, the ills of the society will go unknown.” – AFP.
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