Journalist sentenced to 5,000 years in prison reflects on profession in Africa

Rodney D Sieh, editor of Liberia’s FrontPageAfrica, had run a story that cast doubt on a government audit, finding $6m unaccounted for and was prosecuted as a result.

In a piece for the BBC, he writes: “I served four months in 2013 in the notorious Monrovia Central Prison, where I was thrown into a cell with murderers, armed robbers and petty criminals.

“The prison, built in the capital city to hold 200 prisoners, has more than 1,000 inmates. Nearly half of them have been detained without trial.

“Over the years, it has built a reputation as a haven for hard-core criminals and where critics of government are sent to be taught a lesson.”

“My ordeal is just one example of the difficulties journalists face on a continent often dominated by an elite uncomfortable with criticism.”

Mr Sieh added that in recent decades many journalists had been killed; others exiled and that newspapers had been shut down.

“As a youngster growing up in Monrovia’s hard-knock neighbourhood of Broad Street Snapper Hill, I saw a lot of events unfold.

“Whether it was the rice riots of 1979, or the bloody coup one year later that brought Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe to power, images of violence defined my adolescence.

“This backdrop was just one of the motivations that helped to prepare me for life as a journalist.”

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