Filed in by Olando Testimony Zeongar – 0776819983/0880-361116/life2short4some@yahoo.com
Monrovia – Longtime lawyer and prominent Liberian politician Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine has asserted that the Liberian Government under the leadership of retired footballer George Manneh Oppong Ousman Weah is muzzling the press in Liberia, in an attempt to restrain free speech.
Making his first public statement regarding the country’s governance process since the Weah administration assumed state power, on Monday, the eve of the government’s one year anniversary, Cllr. Brumskine made reference to Punch FM/TV, which he said the government has denied operational permit for no apparent reasons,
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, several months has 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.
But in his address to the nation from the studio of Prime FM and simulcast via several other local radio stations and at least an online television station KMTV, Cllr. Brumskine, cautioned President Weah and officials of his government to allow the press in Liberia to freely operate.
He averred that officials of government were threatening journalists in the line of their job, making specific reference to the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Samuel Tweah, who in reaction to a FrontPageAfrica report, late last year threatened that he would “weaponize” crusaders of the ruling party (CDC) to deal with what he calls “mistruth and falsehood” in the media.
“As public officials and public figures, we have all experienced the venom of the press. Sometimes justifiable, at other times their reporting can be untrue. But as it has been said, a press that is free to investigate and criticize the government is absolutely essential in a nation that practices self-government and is therefore dependent on an educated and enlightened citizenry,” Cllr. Brumskine warned.
He also made reference to a group of legislators who have instituted a libel suit against the publisher of the Hot Pepper newspaper, Mr. Philibert Browne, because of his investigative report on the ‘missing’ 16 billon Liberian dollars.
Since Weah took over as president, the relationship between government and the local media has been strained, with the Liberian leader last year branding as enemies of the state, journalists who are critical of excesses of his administration.
Amid threats and insults from officials of government against media workers, a meeting called last December for the president to dialogue with journalists was boycotted by a huge section of the media.
At the time, Punch FM/TV, Online Service through its management, One Media Incorporated, announced that it was boycotting the meeting called by President Weah inviting media executives to confer with him on Friday, 28 December 2018.
Like many other prominent journalists and media houses backed by the Press Union of Liberia, Punch FM/TV, Online Service did not attend, with the One Media Incorporated stating emphatically it would have not attended or being represented in any way at the president’s called meeting with media practitioners, as a direct protest to the Weah-led government’s undeserved attacks on the Liberian media and by extension an undemocratic onslaught on the freedom of the press and free speech.
The Punch FM/TV, Online Service stance was precipitated by multiple attacks from government officials against journalists in the country.
In late December 2018, the Minister of Information Lenn Eugene Nagbe, whois a member of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL), hauled diatribe at the PUL after the Union condemned heightened waves of threats emanating from government against the media, with Nagbe describing the PUL as a “useless” institution that does not know its function. He was suspended by PUL, but was later pardoned after he showed remorse for his action and apologized.
Also, the closest cabinet minister to the president and the Liberian leader’s chief of office staff, Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, Nathaniel McGill characterized FronPageAfrica and the Liberian media as “criminal entities that are bent on tarnishing the reputations of people.”
But in its statement Punch FM/TV, Online Service insisted that it would not sit in the same room to talk with a president who has remained conspicuously quiet on attacks meted out against journalists and media institutions, and in some instances, where some of these very attacks were incited by inflammatory and derogatory comments against the media from the president himself, adding that doing so “would mean sanctioning the Weah administration’s ‘war against the free press,’ which we believe is a clever but cruel attempt aimed at quashing critical views.”
Instead, the Punch FM/TV, Online Service management team proposed that President Weah sets up a meeting with his officials, some of whom One Media Incorporated said are “attacking the media and threatening to “weaponize” his political party zealots and extremists of the Congress for Democratic Change to go after journalists.”
“In that proposed meeting with his officials, the president needs to call off his all-purpose attack dogs and warn them that journalists are not ‘enemies of the state’, rather a government and its officials who fail the public trust by indulging in misfeasance and malfeasance are the real ‘enemies of the state.’ He also needs to let his officials know that to continue to attack the media is dangerous to the lifeblood of our fledgling democracy and is also totally inimical to the sustenance of the country’s hard-earned peace,” One Media Incorporated further stated.
One Media Incorporated continued: “We also like to state herein, that the government’s unending review process of what it calls “The regulatory regime” of the Liberian media is another form of attack against the freedom of the press, and as such we are calling on the Weah-led government to immediately abort its ploy intended to stifle a select-portion of the media, and unconditionally lift the ban for media institutions it placed an embargo on since June this year, to begin to do their jobs.”
“To constantly prevent Punch 106.7 FM and TV from broadcasting is undemocratic and is a form of media censoring to the highest degree, as what this does is to deny millions of Liberians access to information and their right to be heard,” One Media Incorporated stated.
