Popular US-based Sierra Leonean author, Ishmael Beah has heavily criticised the Office of National Security for targeting international observers in the hours leading to the announcement of the 24 June presidential result.
“The development post of Sierra Leone’s elections continues to be more alarming. The government has now issued a national security press release targeting independent election observers, despite the recognition by all international actors from United States, Germany, Ireland and the European Union and more of their work.
“This is the same modus operandi used in august protests to crush Sierra Leoneans’ right to protest,” Beah said.
He added that the government made use of a “dangerously vague cyber security law” to refer to protesters as “terrorists and insurrectionists”.
“The Act was even used to arrest bloggers for simply voicing their opinions,” he said.
Beah’s condemnation from the ONS followed after the State Security institution issued press release against a local elections observer, National Election Watch (NEW).
The ONS said the report made by NEW was “erroneously regarded as authentic by Development Partners”.
The Security Sector cited that the joint communique by six Development Partners saying the 24 June polls were not transparent is due to the analyses made by NEW.
Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) announced the incumbent Julius Maada Bio as winner of the presidential election hours after NEW said the election will head into runoff.
Why this Bio regime is afraid to constructive criticism? Rather they will term it as breach of the peace . Tell me,which peace do we have when the peace we should have a democratic sovereign state is turned to pieces of bread ,divides in political lines ,tribal grudges and regionalism hate speech . We should try to heal these wound of divide before we push fir reconciliation .
They are not working for the country, they are working best on their own interest, ONS is a scam in our country because all of them are politicians belong to various political parties Twwww
I can challenge the author of this rubbish article that Sierra Leone is not the second poorest country in the world.
It’s high time people stopped propagate wrong information on the country’s public face.
This is wrong and we should stop doing evil to our beloved Mama Salone.
What the NEW did was wrong most especially at those crucial moments when the electioneering process was ongoing. They very knew that, such criticism will bring political instability and tensions. They should have waited for the election results to be counted and to confirm from ECSL if the election will lead to a runoff or not. So I stand with the ONS for security reasons because the main opposition party are desperate to come to power by all means and such statements from NEW would have trigger a political backlash which we don’t want in the country.
A hero for saying the truth. Thank you Mister Beah.
We deserve the truth! I applaud this author! The government did not even teach us his books on our civil war. They leave us in the dark!