Section 26 to 33 of the infamous Public Order Act No. 46 of 1965 makes provision for Defamatory and Seditious Libel. Under these provisions it is an offence punishable on conviction if any media institution knowingly or unknowingly publishes a false news or defamatory story “calculated to bring into disrepute any person who holds an office under the (national) Constitution, in the discharge of his/her duties”. Such a media or person shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction.
Publisher/Managing Editor of For di People newspaper, Paul Kamara, was jailed for six months and fined Le60m under both criminal and civil libel laws when he was convicted in the matter between him and Justice Tolla Thompson when the latter was serving as SLFA President. Kamara was also further jailed (in solitary confinement) under Seditious laws for writing that former president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah was a true convict based on the report of the 1960s Beoku-Betts Commission of Enquiry.
Now, as journalists, we believe that nobody should be convicted for merely expressing his/her views about a public official, whether such views would bring the official into disrepute or not. Section 33 of the Act specifically provides for Seditious Libel, a portion of which reads: “Any person who- a) does or attempts to do, or makes any preparation to do, or conspires with any person to do, any act with seditious intention; or b) utters any seditious intention; or c) prints, publishes, sells, offers for sale, distributes or reproduces any seditious publication; or d) imports any seditious publication, unless he/she has no reason to believe that it is seditious, shall be guilty of an offence”.
According to my dictionary sedition/seditious means “inciting rebellion, subversion, treason and disloyalty”. Now, some have asked what acts of a journalist can attract the penalties of such a law. In our work we have publishers, editors, reporters, printers, vendors and distributors. By this Act, all of these are liable on conviction even if they are aware of a seditious intention or not. Seditious Libel laws therefore will create fear in such people (e.g. printers, vendors and distributors) who may provide their services to media houses for totally un-seditious reasons. (A case in point is John Love Printing Press at Circular Road who was roped in for merely providing printing services to For di People newspaper-see above).
Why should a printer who extends his services purely for economic reason be liable on conviction for unknowingly printing a seditious publication? Why should a vendor or a distribution agent who unknowingly helped to distribute the seditious publication for purely economic reason be liable too? Is ignorance of the law a moral justification/legitimacy? In addition, some have asked: what is the yard stick for classifying a publication as seditious and rebellious? Is it when it is not in the public interest or some individual interest? How do we determine what is in the public interest and what is not in the public interest?
Shortly before the January 6 invasion of Freetown by rebels, some journalists declared over radio that rebels were at the gates of the capital city. One even reported that he saw rebels descending on Freetown from the hills ‘like manna from heaven’. This was thought by the authorities to be a calculated attempt to cause panic and unnecessary alarm. The journalists on the contrary explained that in fact their declaration/report was not meant to cause panic and alarm but to put the national defence apparatus on full alert. Now, which of these two claims was true and in the interest of the public?
Should a journalist therefore be convicted for merely reporting the truth? The popular notion that “truth is not a defence in a libel suit” or “the greater the truth the greater the libel” should be discarded. Why should truth be a libel? Journalists must not be found wanting if they can prove the veracity of their stories irrespective if such truth has damaged the reputation of a public official or private individual. It has long been advanced that Libel and Seditious laws, as contained in our law books, are totally incompatible with freedom of expression and of the press (as contained in our 1991 constitution), and our spirit of democracy.
We are not asking for freedom to invade the privacy or assassinate the character/reputation of public officials and private individuals. All we have been asking, and will continue to demand, is the decriminalisation of Libel laws and the expurgation of Seditious laws. A person guilty of murder or armed robbery sure deserves a jail sentence, but a man guilty of libel does not deserve to go to jail.
Both crimes are apparently not on the same level. We argue that libelling a public official or private individual should not be regarded as a criminal offence but a civil one punishable by civil law, which is usually a fine or, in very rare and extreme cases, an injunction. (Nevertheless, we also want that civil aspect to be reviewed). What the general public should know is that freedom of expression is not a right of journalists only, but of every citizen. So the fight to protect this right must be everyone’s fight, not only media practitioners.
Join the campaign against criminal and seditious libel laws now!!!
