Sierra Leone journalist Sylvia Olayinka Blyden detained

Officials in Sierra Leone should release the journalist Sylvia Olayinka Blyden immediately and drop the charges against her, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said.

On 1 May, police arrested Blyden, publisher of the Awareness Times newspaper, at her home in Freetown on charges of alleged “cyber-related” offences, reports Messeh Leone, a legal activist familiar with the case who spoke to CPJ via messaging app and phone. A 4 June police statement, which CPJ reviewed, confirmed the arrest.

On 22 May, Blyden was charged with sedition, defamation, and “perversion of justice” over her social media posts, said Leone and a copy of the charge sheet, reviewed by CPJ.

Officials granted Blyden bail on 28 May and released her the following day, but then arrested her again on 3 June when she appeared for a hearing at a Freetown magistrates court, allegedly for violating bail conditions that prohibited her from speaking publicly about her case, according to Leone and a report by the Sierra Leone Telegraph, a local news website.

Facebook army

Blyden is charged with violating Sections 27, 32 and 33 of Sierra Leone’s Public Order Act. If convicted, she faces up to seven years in prison and a fine of 1,000 leones (US$0.10), CPJ says.

She is being held at the Freetown female correctional centre, Messeh Leone said.

“Authorities in Sierra Leone have once again shown their disregard for the free press by repeatedly arresting newspaper publisher Sylvia Olayinka,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program co-ordinator, speaking from New York. “Blyden should never have been arrested in the first place, let alone rearrested for allegedly speaking about her case. She must be released immediately and see all the charges against her dropped.”

The charges against Blyden stemmed from posts on her Facebook and Twitter accounts where she criticised President Julius Maada Bio’s leadership, alleged that the former defence minister Alfred Palo Conteh had been mistreated in detention, and shared Awareness Times’s reportingk on Conteh’s case.

Blyden has more than 80,000 followers on her Facebook account and roughly 6,000 on Twitter.

Oppositionist

Awareness Times has covered the Conteh allegations, the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Blyden’s arrest and trial, and other local news topics on its Facebook account and in its printed paper edition.

Police officers seized three phones and three computers from Blyden’s home during her arrest, according to Leone and the 4 June police statement.

Blyden is also a leading member of Sierra Leone’s main opposition party, the All People’s Congress, Leone told CPJ. She served as minister of social welfare, gender and children affairs in the previous government, led by Ernest Bai Koroma, whose Sierra Leone People’s Party lost power in 2016.

A spokesman for the Sierra Leone police, Brimma Kamara, told CPJ via messaging app that the police had not initiated Blyden’s arrest on 3 June, and it was “probably” because Blyden had breached her bail conditions. Kamara also confirmed that her phones and computers were still with the police and would be used as exhibits in the trial against her.

Blyden was granted bail on 28 May, with a bond of 500 million leones ($51,340) and two landowning sureties worth one billion leones ($102,680) each, according to Messeh Leone and an individual familiar with the case, who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisals.

On 3 May, police also arrested Hussain Muckson Sesay, a local political activist. He is accused of photographing the police facility where Blyden is being held and sharing those images on social media. The police charged him with perversion of justice on 22 May, at the same hearing as the one where Blyden appeared, according to the charge sheet for Leone and Blyden.

Sesay separately met the same bail conditions as Blyden and was released on 2 June, Leone said.