Stop torturing journalists, media group urges

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has urged the Liberian government to stop “the unending spate of physical assault, cruel torture and sheer impunity being perpetrated” against journalists and human rights activists. MFWA Executive Director Kwame Karikari said on Friday in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, that the latest torture victim was Throble Suah, a reporter for the Liberian Inquirer newspaper, who was beaten into a coma by soldiers of the Anti-Terrorist Unit. He regained consciousness at a Monrovia hospital after three days but had to be evacuated for further treatment in Ghana. “On 6 January, the MFWA received an SOS from the Press Union of Liberia and a referral medical report from the St. Joseph Catholic hospital advising that Suah’s condition had deteriorated beyond the hospital’s capacity to handle,” MFWA said in a statement. “When Suah was flown to Accra, he had to be helped out of the aircraft on a wheel chair, he had gone blind and he could not stand or walk unaided.” Suah whose travel to Accra was facilitated by the New York-based Committee to Support Journalists, is currently being treated by the African Commission for Health and Human Rights Promoters, an NGO of doctors for human rights who operate a clinic in Accra and have treated victims of torture for years. “Suah is the latest victim of the vicious use of state security forces to arrest, detain, intimidate, brutalize and hound independent journalists and human rights campaigners out of Liberia,” Karikari said. Another journalist, Hassan Bility, was arrested on 24 June, tortured and detained incommunicado for allegedly plotting against President Charles Taylor and being a member of a rebel organization. He was released on 7 December to the US Embassy, following extensive appeals from international organizations and governments. Karikari appealed to other West African governments to urge Liberia to stop harassing journalists and human rights activists.