Jailed for Journalism
It's not uncommon in African countries like Zimbabwe and Ethiopia for newspapers to be shut, and their editors jailed. But the newspaper I edit doesn’t operate in a dictatorship. We are in Liberia, the West’s poster child for postwar democracy building. Our president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is a Nobel laureate who is celebrated by the likes of Bill Gates, Warren E. Buffett and Bono and has positioned herself as a champion of a free press.
Having spent the past week in jail and now under armed guard in a hospital since I contracted malaria, I’m not feeling particularly championed.
Until it was shut down last week, my paper, FrontPage Africa, had been setting a new standard for journalism in West Africa.… Seguir leyendo »