By Politico Staff Writer
The Ministry of Information and Communication has issued a Press Release advising Foreign Journalists to get accreditation from the Ministry before practicing in the country.
According to the statement which was released last Friday, some individuals claiming to be foreign journalists have been practicing in Sierra Leone and believed not to have any accreditation that would have authorized them to do their work.
The Ministry has warned that foreign journalists without accreditation would be breaching the notice and would ‘’face the full penalty of the law’’. Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as the public have also been advised to demand a foreign journalist produced an accreditation before engaging with them.
The Director of Communication at the Ministry, Emmanuel Turay, in a telephone interview with Politico on Saturday said they were not targeting a specific set of journalists but that they have realized from an informed point of view that some people residing here in Sierra Leone claiming to work for various foreign news organizations have not regularized their status with the ministry by obtaining an accreditation, a situation which he said no other country can entertain.
Asked if the notice could not be unconnected to the Government White Paper on the Commissions of Inquiry and the likely sampling of the views of the people by such persons working for foreign media institutions, Turay emphatically stated it was never as a result of that, and said it was just “a coincidence”.
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