By Chernoh Alpha M. Bah
On November 2, the world commemorated the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. This day is set aside to help raise awareness of diverse challenges faced by journalists and mass media communicators in the exercise of their profession. The United Nations noted that this year’s events should serve to “warn of the escalation of violence and repression against mass media communicators around the world.”
Indeed, the global war against journalism and free speech is escalating as we continue to witness the backsliding of democracy on a planetary scale. The attacks and restrictions on the press have included the increasing use of judicial mechanisms against journalists for reasons related to their journalistic work on matters of public interest, and the forceful exile of journalists in some countries.
“This year’s theme seeks to give visibility to the role of a safe and free press in ensuring the integrity of elections and our democratic systems. It reaffirms the obligation of States to adopt effective measures to protect the independent press and strengthen institutional frameworks that combat violence and impunity, and promote media independence, sustainability and diversity,” the United Nations stated.
The Africanist Press has not been an exception to the growing attacks on journalists and press organizations on the African continent. In recent years, we have received various forms of harassment from political leaders in Sierra Leone and their supporters, including death threats. These attacks have escalated in the last two years in spite of our efforts to draw attention to this ongoing war against our work and our lives. The government of Sierra Leone and leaders of various political parties in the country have continued their ongoing harassment with impunity.
Last year, an investigation by Africanist Press uncovered that Sierra Leonean officials paid at least US$5 million to cyber intelligence groups, including the Israeli-based Cognyte Technologies Limited for cyber intelligence services and tools that were mostly used to target political opponents of the Maada Bio administration. Africanist Press discovered that the funds were directly transferred by the Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) between July 2021 and October 2022 to the Israel-based Cognyte Technologies Limited and North Star Enterprise as payments for cyber intelligence solutions and for the supply of public order equipment to security agencies in Sierra Leone. Our investigation found that a total of US$2,211,025.72 was paid to North Star Enterprise to supply special public order equipment to the Sierra Leone Police; few weeks ahead of the infamous August 10th massacre.
Africanist Press also discovered five specific transactions amounting to US$831,999.80 that were paid directly to Cognyte on 7th July 2021 in various amounts ranging from US$84,316.00 to US$155,000.00 and US$218,841.82 to US$310,000.00. The payments were ordered by the Office of the President and authorized by Ministry of Finance officials after the enactment of the new cyber security legislation. In addition to the July 2021 payments, two further payments in separate amounts of US$310,000 and another amount of US$630,000 were also processed and transferred to Cognyte Technologies on 1st October 2021 and 10th May 2022 respectively. In total, Africanist Press found that the Central Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) transferred over US$2 million to Cognyte Technologies during the first 12 months following the new law on cyber security.
In addition to the Cognyte transactions, Africanist Press also found that a total of US$2,211,025.72 was simultaneously paid to another company listed as North Star Enterprise to supply special public order equipment to the Sierra Leone Police. Our investigation discovered that these payments were also processed between 11th January 2022 and 18th July 2022 in multiple amounts ranging from US$184,252.14 to US$210,573.88. The payments were processed in 11 different transactions by banking officials in Sierra Leone, and transferred directly to the United States in the name of North Star Enterprise through the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) in New York.
Evidence shows that Sierra Leonean security agencies, including the Office of National Security (ONS) and Sierra Leone Police, employed the procured cyber services and public order equipment in cyber surveillance activities and other intelligence operations targeting journalists of the Africanist Press as part of a state-sponsored transnational operation designed to silence and criminalize our work. The sponsored war against Africanist Press has been ongoing since then and includes several foreign operatives and their local agents from London to Washington, and from Florida to Israel, and Lebanon to Kenya, Tanzania, and Freetown. Transactions of Sierra Leonean embassies and diplomatic offices in Washington, Ankara, London, and Florida, show details of these operations. Part of their objective has been to criminalize the Africanist Press and our genuine work, and to seek to convince foreign governments that the Africanist Press is a front for dissident elements among the Sierra Leonean diaspora.
Records we uncovered and published show that agents of these hired intelligence groups and public relations firms and lobbyists met with Sierra Leone Police leaders and the Internal Affairs Ministry in Freetown since at least March 2022 at the height of the reported police violence against citizens in Sierra Leone. These foreign agents are providing security advice, intelligence gathering services, and training programs for the Sierra Leone Police. They were actively working with security sector leaders in Sierra Leone months ahead of the state-instigated protests and massacre of civil demonstrators in August 2022.
In August 2023, local agents of these hired intelligence operatives in Freetown published documents disclosing that Maada Bio had embarked on supposed new efforts to hire Jerry Torres and the Mercury Firm as lobby agents in the United States. In publishing those documents, the government and its lobbyists were actually trying to hide and legitimized the operations of Jerry Torres and other hired foreign security operatives from the United States, United Kingdom, and other parts of Europe who have been present in Freetown since March 2022 and have been actively working with Sierra Leone’s Police authorities since 2021 on diverse surveillance operations against democratic critics of the Maada Bio regime. Many of these hired agents were assigned principally to attack the work of the Africanist Press.
Since last year, we have published evidence showing that politicians in Sierra Leone and their allied agents in civil society were fully aware of the operations of these hired agencies. Many of them are also directly paid from government funds to serve as social media agents for the Bio regime to assist these hired private intelligence firms in their ongoing disinformation campaign in the country. In April 2021, for instance, local PR efforts to help launder the corrupt image of the Maada Bio regime and to counter publications of the Africanist Press also included series of presidential media appearances on local TV and radio stations and a town hall event held in Freetown where Maada Bio was provided a platform to respond to details of the revealing publications of the Africanist Press. At that event, Maada Bio mentioned his plans for the 2022 electoral reforms including his desire to use the problematic proportional representation system and his intention to dismantle the National Audit Service. The event was organized by civil society activists aligned to both ruling and opposition parties in the country.
Thus, the money paid to cyber surveillance groups and domestic and foreign intelligence companies to counter Africanist Press in 2021 and 2022 alone would have built 12 standard hospitals, or could have been used to renovate all university campuses in the country. It is obvious that the war against the Africanist Press has cost Sierra Leone fortunes in public funds. Sadly, it is a war that involves Sierra Leone’s politicians from both ruling and opposition parties, and it is a war backed by international surveillance-for-hire cyber agencies who are acting in concert with foreign groups and public relations companies.
This is why we now insist that what we need in Sierra Leone today is not just an investigation into the June 2023 elections, but we need a real examination of these various cyber and security intelligence groups, and how they created and contributed to the troubling political environment that Sierra Leone faces today. The fact is that Sierra Leone cannot be dangerous for its own citizens, and safe only for the politicians and international financial actors. Democratic nations and organizations around the world must explicitly speak out against the growing hostility against press freedom in the country, and especially the attacks on the Africanist Press.
We want to use this day to remind the world that they have an obligation in ensuring that the evolving hostile environment against journalists in Sierra Leone is not allowed to flourish. The world cannot afford to be silent in the face of a national and international campaign purposefully designed to crowd out genuine voices against kleptocracy and corruption in Sierra Leone. The government of Sierra Leone must respect its own obligations to the citizens of the country, including the protection of their fundamental human rights.