'News Hunters' Commences Print Publication Soon

The Sierra Leone News Hunters management is concluding arrangements to commence its publications on print in Sierra Leone.

The print publication which is expected to carry a similar name as the online outlet, albeit slight modifications, may hit the news stands by the end of September or the start of October this year.

The News Hunters will consist of a strong team of trained and qualified journalists that will usher in positive changes in the country's media landscape.

It will serve as an apolitical news outlet, that will disseminate objective, fearless, favourless, and non partisan information of public interest.

Don't expect new names but new things in the media landscape.

Stay glued right here for updates on the Sierra Leone News Hunters (Ariogbo) Newspaper.

And feel free to drop your comments below on what you will like to see on the "Ariogbo" newspaper, and be rest assured that your views would be highly considered.   

Wellington Thugs Attack Editor & Family

The Editor for Awareness Times Newspaper, currently on leave, his mother Mrs. Kadiatu Kamara and his sister, Fatmata Fonti Kabia, came under brutal attacks in the morning hours of Saturday 20^th August 2011 at Wellington by area thugs.

Editor Abdul Karim Fonti Kabia and her elder sister were escorting their sick mother to the hospital when the Philip Street (Station One) thugs descended on them with sticks, stones and bottles, and unleashed mayhem on them.

It all started when a playing boy materialized from nowhere and nearly got himself crushed by the Benz in which Fonti and his family were driving.

Fonti’s mother was attacked with insults when she climbed down the car and politely cautioned the area people to warn their children against playing in the streets to avoid accident.

In no time, the area thugs surrounded the vehicle and placed a big stone in front of one of the tires insisting that the vehicle was going no where, as according to them, the vehicle hit the boy.

“Well, if you are insisting that our vehicle hit the boy, let’s forget the argument and let us take the boy to the hospital in our car,” Fonti told the crowd of area boys, while informing them that his mother was seriously sick and cannot afford to stay long to reach the hospital.

The thugs insisted that nobody was going anywhere until police arrives.

It was at this juncture that Fonti attempted to remove the stone from the vehicle after making clear that the area boys have no right to impound the vehicle, especially so when the boy that was allegedly hit was standing upright with not a single abrasion, and due to the fact that his mother was in urgent need of medical attention.

Fonti’s attempt to remove the stone from the vehicle was rebuffed by four heavy muscled men who descended on him and started hitting him indescrimately with sticks and stones. His sister and sick mother also faced similar attacks.

Fonti later rushed to the Kissy Police Division to seek police intervention to restore law and order in the area that had been transferred to a gangster cartel.

All of the thugs disappeared into thin air by the time the police arrived at the scene. The matter is however being rigorously investigated.

Slain Journalist Laid to Rest

Murdered Journalist Ibrahim Foday

Over one hundred journalists turned out on Tuesday 21^st June 2011 to join hundreds of other mourners at the St Martin’s church in the east of Freetown to bid befitting farewell to their slain colleague Ibrahim Foday of the Exclusive Newspaper. 

Ibrahim, 38, was stabbed to death at Grafton in the outskirts of Freetown on 12 June as he covered a riot involving two communities disputing ownership of a plot of land. He was the second journalist to be buried in three days after Ibrahim El-Tayyib Bah who died of natural causes.

The officiating clergy, the Rev Fr Vincent Davies said the level of “lawlessness” in the country was becoming scarily alarming. He said journalists must keep standing up for the truth and not allow themselves to be dissuaded or cowed by those who took truth-telling to mean enmity. 

He prayed for divine protection for media practitioners and urged the authorities to act to reverse the current trend of violence in the country.

In his tribute, President of SLAJ, Umaru Fofana vowed to do all he could to bring the assailants to justice. He said SLAJ would hire the services of lawyers to work with the police on the matter. 

He said Ibrahim had died in the line of duty, referring to his killing premeditated murder. 

Police have arrested a police officer and the headman of Kossoh Town, one of the disputing communities, in connection with the killing of the journalist. Tunday Williams believed to have stabbed the journalist to death is at large. Stabbed in the right back, Ibrahim sustained a 7 cm-deep and 2 cm-wide wound which left his lungs severed before the knife hit his chest. 

By Olabisi Garrick

Journalist Stabbed to Death...SLAJ Alarmed

The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) has vehemently condemned the killing of journalist Ibrahim Foday formerly of Exclusive Newspaper.  

Ibrahim was stabbed on Sunday June 12, 2011, during a land dispute between the Grafton and Kossoh Town communities in the outskirts of Freetown.

“The exact motive of his killing is yet unclear but it came as he had published stories on the land dispute which apparently did not go down well with especially the Kossoh Town community,” a SLAJ press release disclosed.

SLAJ President, Umaru Fofana, has held a series of meetings with the Kossoh Town headman Victor Haffner and some member of the Grafton community and pleaded with them to help bring the killer(s) to book.

He has also held meetings with the Assistant Inspector General of Police for Freetown East, Mohamed Kamara, the police Local Unit Commander Amos Kargbo and the Government Chief pathologist Dr Owis Koroma.

SLAJ has also been in contact with other senior police officers on the matter and has provided the name of someone suspected to be behind the slaying of the journalist.

“We urge the police to speed up investigations and bring to justice those behind this cowardly and reprehensible killing of the journalist”, says the SLAJ president.

“The fact that people can take the law into their own hands and kill someone else, no matter who the victim is or what could be their motive, is worrisome for our society,” Fofanah said.

An autopsy will be carried out tomorrow at the Connaught Hospital at 12:00 noon and journalists are encouraged to be there, the SLAJ release urged.

“This is the first fatal attack on a journalist in the country since 2005 when Harry Yansanneh was beaten to death. The then Editor of For Di People newspaper died after being beaten by family members of a sitting parliamentarian of the then ruling SLPP party Dr Fatmata Hassan who never faced justice. Following her party’s loss of power in 2007, she switched her allegiance to the present ruling APC party who unconscionably allowed her into their fold. SLAJ also calls on that case to be reopened even if the family of the late Harry no longer seem interested in it. This was a crime against the state and must be pursued by any government that is serious in the fight against impunity”.