President Ernest Bai Koroma reacts to Dr. Silvia Blyden postings on facebook President Ernest Bai Koroma has for the first time reacted to his Special Executive Assistant (SEA) Dr. Silvia Blyden’s postings on facebook that government was planning to take journalists to court under the 1965 public order act which criminalises libel in an exclusive interview with the BBC conducted on Thursday morning. The President didn’t refute Dr. Blyden’s comment nor did he endorse it. Read below what he said word for word. “If you go out there and enquire from the journalists, they’ll tell you that the freedom they are now enjoying has never been enjoyed by them over the years. Go out there and ask for my track record and my track record will tell you what this government stands for in terms of freedom of the press, in terms of even freedom to our political opponents. What is enjoyed now has never been enjoyed before. We are not saying that it’s a free country for journalists, we have the laws, and whatever are the laws we have to comply with them until the laws are changed. We’ll continue to give freedom to the journalists but we’ll also want to urge them to work within the framework of the existing laws.” When asked about the promise he made before he was elected in 2007 that he would change the seditious libel laws to guarantee that can’t be used against journalists, and if can keep to his promise the president replies: “We are now working towards the review of the entire constitution I don’t want to affect reviews on a piecemeal basis but at the end of the review of the 1991 constitution I would invite you to come and ask me the same question and before then may be your question would have been answered.” The interview was done by Alison Gee. Pic 1: Me and President Koroma, pic 2: Me, President Koroma and Alison Gee
Posted on: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 21:41:43 +0000
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