Liberia: Reporters Without Borders codemns LFA VP, Wilmot Smith for ordering journalist’s arrest

Smith has also been condemned by several other individuals and institutions including the parent body of sports journalists in the country, the Sports Writers Association of Liberia (SWAL).

Reporters Without Borders, in a recent statement said Liberian journalist D. Webster Cassell was arrested just for reporting that the FA Vice President Wilmot Smith attacked a referee.

“Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns this flagrant violation of the country’s new law on press freedom,” the statement read.

Upon complaint from FA Vice President Smith, armed police  officers stormed the age-old Antoinette

Tubman Stadium (ATS), on 10 June to arrest Cassell, who works for The Inquirer newspaper, as Sports Editor, an action Reporters Without Borders said violates press freedom.

“This arrest violates the law on press freedom signed by Liberia’s president in February, which decriminalizes press offences,” said Assane Diagne, the director of RSF’s West Africa office.

Liberia is ranked 89th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index.

In a previous statement, Reporters Without Borders reported a surge in arrest of critical journalists and media in Liberia, indicating that just over a year after taking office in January 2018, President George Weah signed a press freedom law decriminalizing defamation of the president, sedition and malevolence.

But RSF notes that despite this significant advancement in the protection of Liberian journalists, 2018 was marked by many verbal and physical attacks on media personnel, with the result that the Press Union of Liberia wrote an open letter to the UN Secretary-General on 11 April voicing alarm about the rapid rise in official intolerance for independent journalism and dissent.

When contacted for response, Wilmot Smith, who also serves in the Weah-led government as an official at the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS), derisively asked whether Punch FM, a station repressively shut down by the Weah’s administration for politically motivated reasons, was still a radio station in the country.

Smith’s assertions grew from a telephone call to him from Punch FM/TV Executive Editor and Acting General Manager, Olando Testimony Zeongar, when he introduced himself and stated his place of work.

“Punch FM? Is there a station in Liberia called Punch FM?” Aked, a rather scornful Smith, who is a stalwart of President Weah’s political party, the Congress for Democratic Change.

Thereafter, Smith claimed the same telephone-line on which seconds ago, he sounded disparaging about Punch FM’s existence, was grinding, and that he could therefore, not understand the questions being posed to him by our Executive Editor.

Howbeit, as at the time of this publication, Smith had not responded to a text mesage from Punch online service, seeking his response to reports that he ordered armed police officers to arrest a journalist inside a football stadium.

One Media Incorporated, owner of Punch FM/TV and Online Service, is a registered media entity under Liberian laws, but a government announced indefinite review of the country’s media regime has kept the station off the air after it was legally granted a frequency, 107.6 in the Frequency Modulation bandwidth along with a broadcast license by the Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA), and an operational permit by the Ministry of Information Cultural Affairs and Tourism (MICAT), about a year ago.

It can be recalled that in January of 2018, One Media Incorporated met all requirements under Liberian laws to operate as a bonafide media entity, having been cleared by government and issued broadcast license and operational permit.

But in June, the Weah administration prevented the station from coming on air, citing a review of the country’s media sector as its basis.

However, a year has almost elapsed and the government is yet to state when its review process will be concluded, but it has been reliably gathered that government has since cleared other new media entities such as Independent Inquirer and Spoon FM to operate while it has not announced the conclusion of its review process.

Meanwhile, Punch online service understands that following the intervention of FA legal representative, Cllr. Joseph Kollie, Cassell was released later the same day.