By Malik Shabbaz
The weeks leading to the festivity of the December holidays left many Sierra Leoneans in complete awe. Citizens were awakened by what happened to be a shocking gesture by the security forces of Sierra Leone leading to the arrest of a reality TV contestant in the person of Hawa Hunt.
This very act of the police has led to an outcry, with many citizens condemning the act of the police, calling it outrageous. And this is what has promoted me to write this piece which aims to further asses the action of the police and the content of the video leading to the arrest of the victim and lay a clear roadmap as to the need to put into context what is free speech and what is Privacy. The permissibility and impermissibility of such a freedom.
The Sierra Leone constitution, regardless of its democratic features, does not give absolute free speech to citizens. A critical look into the whole of Chapter Three of the Constitution dedicated to fundamental Human Rights and freedom of the individual, has several lacunae to wit; many of the said rights were taken back from the citizens. This, therefore, explains the fact that there is no absolute freedom of expression or free speech in Sierra Leone.
In furtherance of Section 25 of the constitution, which grants citizens freedom of speech and of the press, it is empirical to note that this also is not an absolute right. It is, therefore, correct to say the whole of Chapter 3 of the constitution of Sierra Leone is somewhat vague and inconsistent. On the flip side, however, let us now examine the act of Hawa Hunt and that of the Sierra Leone Police.
Unwanted Attention:
The act of the police to arrest an alleged accused on a live broadcast can be classified under the category of unwanted attention. By unwanted attention I mean that instituting an arrest against a suspect on such a platform gives so much publicity that does not sit well with the said suspect. A clear contrast of the adverse effects of such an act can be seen in the American case of Texas Assistant District Attorney Louis Conradt who did not welcome the attention when a SWAT team entered his home in the company of camera crews from NBC’s program to “Catch a Predator”.
Conradt had apparently engaged in sexually explicit online chat with a decoy posing as an underaged teen. He had turned down the decoy’s offer to meet her in person, so instead NBC came to him. Unable to face the public shame of being accused of being a child predator before a national television audience, he shot and killed himself”.
Another example can be the case of Marvin Briscoe, who had kept a secret from his family about his past when “Reader’s Digest” published a story about hijacking that disclosed his name and the fact that he committed a crime twelve years before, a crime for which he had already received his punishment and which he had tried to put behind him. Because of the article, Briscoe’s daughter and friends found out about his past crime, which he had kept a secret, and abandoned him.
The above scenario is a clear example of how unwanted attention can put the lives of victims in danger and threats. The democratization of the media and the right to freedom of the press and individuals, with the aid of social media or what is called citizen journalism, has posed a serious conflict between the privacy of people in public spaces and that of the freedom of the press. Over the last several years the likelihood of receiving unwanted attention has risen dramatically because of the proliferation of new technologies. As a result, information that mainstream traditional media exposed in an original broadcast or publication—information that in the past might have been soon forgotten—can now be archived and readily accessed years later. But another, distinct feature of the age of social media is that anyone, not just the news and entertainment media, can now broadly disseminate information. Individuals use the Internet and social media to accuse people of a wide range of uncivil behavior and in some cases to seek out and punish them. This is the category under which Hawa Hunt’s vitriolic video against the First Family falls short. Such a video cannot be classified under the right to free speech. She went as far as violating her rights to free speech and press freedom changing the whole scenario to bullying and personal vendetta against the First Family.
The Argument For or Against Free Speech:
Whereas many countries have used free speech and freedom of the press to protect public safety and security, in Sierra Leone freedom of the press or free speech has become nothing short of hunting political opponents, entertainment rivals or people in investment industries. The advent of citizen journalism in Sierra Leone has nothing to write home about. People at random have used the freedom of the press to defame or bully those they consider as rivals. Every other institution or person has been challenged with the illegal use of free speech and press freedom. The police force is on record for muzzling the press and clamping down critical minds against government excesses. Citizens, on the other hand, have used free speech and freedom of the press to attack decent people without backed-up evidence.
It is, therefore, correct to say that freedom of the press and free speech has been discredited by the coming of social media. Freedom of the press and free speech guarantees individuals the right to hold opinions but these opinions in many instances have turned out to be false or a witchhunt in a society as primitive as Sierra Leone. There is a serious glitch between the knowledge of what people understand by cyber laws and what citizen journalism really means. And I must state with utmost certainty that the Commission on the Right To Access Information has not done anything to get the people to understand what freedom of speech and freedom of the press really mean. The government, despite the many laws passed in Parliament, has not done justice to ensure the enforcement of these laws. Rather it has used these laws to clamp down on opponents and rivals.
On the other hand, people at random have violated the privacy of others in public spaces. In an accident, no matter how gory it may be, pictures of victims are shared at will by those who happen to witness the said accident without a single viewer discretion warning. Many people’s privacy is being violated on a daily basis all in the name of what I will term “Social Media Journalism”.
Permissible and Impermissible Speech:
According to Mark Tunick, there are less clear-cut cases where it may be difficult to draw a line between permissible and impermissible speech, and hard to decide which is more important: privacy, or living in a society in which information is freely exchanged and people can express themselves without fear. With that said, where do we now classify Miss Hunt’s rantings on the viral video against the First Family in 2023? Is it permissible to say the said video meets the requirement of free speech? What is then a free Speech? If we agree that some speech should be limited for the sake of privacy, a further question remains: what means should we use to restrict that speech? Should those who give someone unwanted attention be imprisoned? Should courts issue injunctions to prevent publication of potentially abusive material so that people never need suffer the abuse, or should we instead rely on post-publication legal remedies that provide compensation and punitive damages based on actual harm caused—and if no harm is caused, as might be the case when someone uploads an embarrassing video of someone on YouTube that no one ever views, there would be no case for damages?
Or, instead of using the law to blame and deter overzealous citizen-journalists, should we rely rather on ethical codes of conduct and moral reproaches? Or should regulations be put in place affecting what technology is available to the public, or the structure of the Internet, to make it more difficult for certain information to be gathered or conveyed? To decide what limits, if any, should be placed on free speech for the sake of privacy, we need to assess the value of these competing interests and ask where a reasonable balance between privacy and free speech lies. But we also eventually need to address how we might implement policies that achieve that balance.
Conclusion:
Conclusively, the advent of citizen journalism in Sierra Leone through the help of what my lecturer; Professor Tonya Musa would call “New-new media” has widened the space for hate speech, bullying, defamation and libel. Social media is constantly engaged with information that can be classified as unwanted attention. Citizens are in gross violation of their individual freedom to free speech and press. This, therefore, calls for an overhaul review on free speech and the right to privacy for individuals in public spaces. Consequently, given the fact that citizen-journalism has caused more harm than good to people who fell victim of such practice, this could not be said to be a reason to trampled on the right of free speech.
On the flip side, however, citizens must own up to the task to ensure their right to free speech must not be misconstrued to mean hate speech or cyber bullying. The police as well as Hawa Hunt are at loggerheads with the laws. Both have in one way or the other violated someone’s right to privacy and respect. It is, therefore, correct to say the supremacy of the law must at all times be respected.
Editor’s Note:
These are views representing only the guest writer, Malik Shabbaz. He is a graduate of the University of Sierra Leone, Fourah Bay College with a Bachelor of Arts with Honors In Mass Communication and a Bachelor of Laws with Honors (LLB Honors). MalikShabbaz is a young political figure who once aspired to become a Member of Parliament under the All People’s Congress. He was among those who facilitated the enacting of the APC 2022 Democratic Constitution. He is currently a cohort for the AI and Law Institute in the USA doing research on AI Agents and The Rule Of Law.
