Verity News River Cess County correspondent Methuselah Gaye has just been arbitrarily arrested and jailed on what colleagues and media rights advocates are calling “trumped-up charges.”
Gaye’s arrest comes just days after he and fellow journalist Eric Opa Doue conducted and published series of investigative reports exposing the operations of a suspected drug cartel in River Cess County that is allegedly being shielded by State security and some court officials.
The expose implicated several individuals with alleged connections to both local law enforcement and influential political and judicial actors.
According to eyewitnesses, Gaye was taken into custody under murky circumstances on Tuesday, August 13, and is currently being held without formal charge. His brother on the scene said he was manhandled and even slapped when security forces picked him up this afternoon.
Authorities have yet to make any public statement detailing the basis for his arrest. But the Writ of Arrest from the Magisterial Court claimed that he allegedly reported “misleading information” that “embarrassed the Court”.
Verity News leadership has sharply condemned the arrest, calling it “a blatant act of crackdown on free press and a repressive retaliation against a journalist doing his job.”
The Management of Verity News described the incident as part of a “dangerous pattern of intimidation and censorship aimed at silencing independent and investigative reporting in Liberia.”
“We stand firmly with, beside, and behind journalist Methuselah Gaye and Eric Opa Doue. We are demanding their immediate and unconditional release from intimidation, censorship, and imprisonment. The Court and Correctional Systems must never be weaponize against press freedom and free speech,” Exiled Liberian Activist Martin K. N. Kollie said.
“This is a clear case of abuse of power and a direct attack on free press. We are contacting our lawyers to act with urgency,” Kollie noted.
