MONROVIA, Montserrado – The head of the advocacy group Campaigners for Change, Vandalark Patricks, has been charged with sedition and criminal libel against President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
The Liberia National Police or LNP on Tuesday arrested Patricks for a statement he made accusing the Sirleaf-led government of hiring assassins to murder Harry Greaves and eliminate other political opponents to maintain state power.
Patricks was being held at the headquarters of the LNP on Capitol Hill and was finally charged late Wednesday evening and incarcerated at the Monrovia Central Prison.
LNP officers escorting Patricks to the Monrovia Central Prison. Photo: Zeze Ballah
According to Liberian law, criminal libel against the president occurs when a person “exposes to the public any writing, or makes any public broadcast, in which he has accused the incumbent President of the Republic of Liberia of conduct which constitutes the commission of a crime, provided, that at the time of such publication the conduct charged is untrue and the actor knows it to be untrue, and the purpose of the actor is to thereby injure the President in his reputation.â€
The charge of sedition relates to advocating “by word-of-mouth, writing or otherwise, sectionalism, countyism, tribalism, parochialism or the like, with the intent in so doing to incite the people to hostility, create disunity among the people and divide the Nation.â€
These were the same laws Sirleaf promised to repeal when she signed onto the Table Mountain Declaration in 2012 to promote free speech.
Tiawan Gongloe, who is representing the legal interest of Patricks, told The Bush Chicken that Patricks’ arrest is a big test for the government’s much-applauded tolerance of free speech.
Cllr. Tiawon Gongloe representing Vandalark in Court. Photo: Zeze Ballah
“The action on the part of the government to arrest Patricks will have a bad effect on free speech in Liberia,†he noted.
He said a lot of Liberians will now be afraid to speak their mind against the government.
Gongloe, who served as Solicitor General in Sirleaf’s government, pointed out that under his regime, people were not thrown in prison for free speech.
LNP officers at the Temple of Justice on Wednesday. Photo: Zeze Ballah
“A free society cannot be built on jailing people for free speech,†Gongloe said.
He maintained that the action on the part of the government to arrest Patricks undermines the credibility of Sirleaf and her entire government.
Featured photo by Zeze Ballah
