Control
| Country Press Freedom ranking | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Country rank | score | |
| 2007 | 121 | 39.50 | |
| 2006 | 103 | 26.00 | |
| 2005 | 126 | 39.50 | |
| 2004 | 88 | 24.50 | |
| 2003 | 87 | 23.50 | |
| 2002 | 72 | 24.50 | |
| Data from reporters without borders, who also compile rank lower indicated more freedom. |
|||
The government in Sierra Leone enacts strong control over the media in the country. They control one of the only free terrestrial television networks and use legislation to control media content. Society and members of the political elite also impose a strong control on what is produced with some subjects seen as taboo and violence used by the political establishment against journalists. For example, Harry Yansaneh, the acting editor of For di People, died in 2005 of kidney failure from the injuries caused by an attack by people allegedly sent by a deputy in the ruling party. International organisations also control significant parts of the media in Sierra Leone. For example the only continuously broadcasting radio station in the country is run by the UN and the BBC runs one of the most popular radio stations. However, most of the radio stations in the country are independent commercially owned stations and which is also the case for the newspaper industry. In 2007 Sierra Leone was ranked 121 out of 169 countries on the scale of press freedom.
The Sierra Leone constitution guarantees freedom of speech, and freedom of the press; however, the government at times restricts these rights in practice. Under legislation enacted in 1980, all newspapers must register with the Ministry of Information and pay sizeable registration fees and the Criminal Libel Law including Seditious Libel Law of 1965 is used to control what is published in the media. This has led to journalists being imprisoned, for example, Paul Kamara, editor of For di People, was imprisoned for 14 months during 2004 and 2005 for seditious libel. The Sierra Leone Independent Media Commission was created in 2000 as an independent body to regulate the mass media.
In 2006 President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah committed to reforming the laws governing the press and media to create a freer system for journalist to work in.
Read more about this topic: Media Of Sierra Leone
Famous quotes containing the word control:
“The human mind is indeed a cave swarming with strange forms of life, most of them unconscious and unilluminated. Unless we can understand something as to how the motives that issue from this obscurity are generated, we can hardly hope to foresee or control them.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.”
—Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)
“We human beings do have some genuine freedom of choice and therefore some effective control over our own destinies. I am not a determinist. But I also believe that the decisive choice is seldom the latest choice in the series. More often than not, it will turn out to be some choice made relatively far back in the past.”
—A.J. (Arnold Joseph)