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Upcoming Election in Sierra Leone

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Elections in Sierra Leone are set for June 24, 2023. CHERNOH ALPHA BAH, ChernohBah2022@u.northwestern.edu, @AfricanistPress
Bah is founder of Africanist Press which has been publishing exposes of corruption, including the ruling party as well as parts of the opposition. The Africanist Press is part of the Write for Justice initiative, set up to help ensure free, fair and peaceful elections. He was profiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists: “Sierra Leone publisher Chernoh Alpha Bah threatened with death, charges of treason.” “Sierra Leonean authorities should cease their harassment of the Africanist Press and must investigate the death threats against its publisher, Chernoh Alpha Bah, instead of trying to censor him,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator.

Bah said today: “I’m currently living in exile in the United States as a consequence of my work which has exposed corruption in both the ruling party as well as parts of the opposition. For 20 years we at Africanist Press, have made public documents showing corruption and graft across three successive regimes in Sierra Leone. As a result of leading this work, Africanist Press and myself have experienced escalating threats from various sectors of the political groups in Sierra Leone and from the government of Sierra Leone.

“Last year, the Office of National Security submitted a complaint to the Independent Media Commission, the country’s media regulator, claiming ‘most of the Africanist Press publications have been inherently inflammatory, either causing disaffection amongst the public or inciting them against the government.

“I have continued to live in the United States with the fear that I will not be able to return to Sierra Leone, or elsewhere in the West African region, without risking arbitrary detention and criminal charges related to my work.

“Most of what I’ve done is publish internal government documents showing financial corruption.

“The government of Sierra Leone has also hired an Israeli firm to spy on myself and other journalists. I know this because I was leaked those documents too.”