Communicating Justice

Communicating Justice goes to Sierra Leone

Twenty Sierra Leonean print and broadcast journalists have completed a two-week “Communicating Justice” training course in Freetown, saying it has improved their knowledge of transitional justice (TJ) and the skills needed to report it. 

“I will now be able to tackle the issues relating to TJ as a journalist,” commented one participant as the course ended on October 26. Another participant said the course helped her to become “familiar with issues which I believe will be affecting victims of war in my country. This will help me use the correct means of how to reach them”. 

To ensure the support of their media organizations, the Communicating Justice project also organized a series of briefings for editors, kicking off with a discussion forum on “transitional justice, accountability and the role of the media in post-conflict Sierra Leone.” 

“Now that Sierra Leone has returned to a truly democratic country with a free press, the media should take advantage of this opportunity to address those issues that threaten the peace process,” Alhaji Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, then president of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), told the forum on October 9, “just as the same media can perform its constitutional functions, which demand that it can hold government accountable. In other words we are no longer going to tolerate impunity in this country.”  Kargbo has been appointed Information Minister in Sierra Leone’s new government.

Other speakers on the panel included Justice Laura Marcus-Jones, who served on her country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and Peter Andersen, head of Press and Public Affairs at the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. The debate was moderated by Hassan Arouni, a well-known former presenter on BBC Africa programs who has returned to his native Sierra Leone as a BBC World Service Trust project director.

Training for reporters sought to impart a broad understanding of transitional justice and its issues, how to deal with these issues as journalists and to develop news and features around them. The training roster included international media trainer Janet Anderson, a former BBC journalist, and ICTJ trainers Abdul Tejan Cole, Mohamed Suma and Alex Loden.

Trainers gave particular attention to the Special Court for Sierra Leone and its legacy, as well as the work of the TRC. The Special Court is trying those “most responsible” for atrocities committed during the civil war and has so far brought nine people to trial – including former Liberian President Charles Taylor. It is due, however, to wind up by 2009. 

The TRC worked from 2002 to late 2004 and submitted extensive recommendations to the government, including reparations for victims; reform of the judiciary and security services; and measures to promote human rights, good governance and freedom of expression. 

Sierra Leone’s recent election of a new president and parliament has raised hopes that these recommendations might now be implemented more fully.

Course participants are following up their face to face training with a specially devised online course, using the BBC World Service Trust’s iLearn system.  Participants can access the course via this website. The online course consists of a series of modules. Concentrating on specific skills such as accuracy, court reporting or interviewing victims of trauma, each module contains text, a summary of learning points and multiple choice questions with computer generated feedback. Participants are also asked to complete assignments which are graded by a local trainer. 

Computer skills and iLearn sessions were built into the face to face training to ensure that the trainees can follow their online course. “Before the training, my knowledge on Internet was scanty,” wrote one Sierra Leonean trainee. “Through iLearn I can now do several other things on the Internet.”

Reporters’ training took place from October 15 to 26 in the Freetown premises of Search for Common Ground (SFCG), a US-based non-government organization which has a strong presence working with independent media in Sierra Leone. The training course was the second under the Communicating Justice project, following a similar one for Liberian journalists in August. The project will take training to Uganda, DR Congo and Burundi in the first half of 2008.