Sierra Leone police breaks silence on the arrest of Dr Sylvia Blyden

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 04 May 2020:

Four days after Dr Sylvia Blyden was arrested and continues to be locked up by police in Freetown without charge, the Sierra Leone police has this evening released a statement explaining why they have arrested the journalist and opposition politician.

The Media and Public Relations Unit at Police Headquarters, said: 

“Following cyber-related intelligence reports received at various times, the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) Friday 1st May, 2020, went to the residence of Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden, at Cockle Bay, with the intention to arrest and investigate her for Incitement and Subversion. (Photo: Head of Sierra Leone Police – IG Soluva).

“The team of detectives arrived at her residence at 07:15 hours of the same day but were deliberately denied access to the premises by Dr. Blyden, until 15:30 hours.

“After the detectives finally gained entrance into the said premises, a search warrant was executed which led to three phones and three laptop computers retrieved from her for examination and analysis.

“She (Dr. Blyden) was also taken into custody at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and still being detained, helping the Police with the investigation.

“The public will be updated of development as the investigation progresses.”

There were expectations today for the release of Dr Blyden on bail, instead the police have issued this statement which has prompted many in Sierra Leone to ask questions about the need for the police to continue to keep Dr Blyden behind bars, whilst they conduct their investigations in search of evidence.

According to the police, they have arrested and are investigating the possibility Dr  Sylvia Blyden may be guilty of incitement and subversion.

So far they have no evidence but have chosen to continue to lock her up all the same, until and when they can find the evidence with which she could be charged to court.

This seeming abuse of police powers, will certainly affect the country’s human rights rating, and possibly also the country’s foreign investment potential.

5 Comments

  1. Can you separate the legislative from the executive branches in any democratic Western country where you Sahr Matturi is currently residing since the party that made the executive has members of parliament that are duly elected by their electorates in establishing the legislative branch. Mr Matturi you should realised that in every democratic society every political party vie for both the legislative and executive branches of governance and the majority of duly elected members or vote casts head the executive and government of the day as we can seen in older and mature political parties as the Conservatives and the Labour parties in the UK and the Democrates and the Republican parties of the USA.

    And in Sierra Leone democratic political climate we have the SLPP and APC parties which had ruled Sierra Leone since independence with the exception of the briefly military coups like the NPRC FROM April 1992-April 1996 and the brief period of Brig Juxon-Smith and Major Jumu between 168-1970. The APC led government ruled for 33 years and the SLPP party for 19 years now since the 59 years we had independence and Pa Tejan-Kabbah is the longest serving SLPP Head of State for his 2 terms of 5 years a term time being. And finally Mr Matturi how is it possible in your day-dreaming for the head of police and the police force to just report to the legislative branch when both the legislative and executive is governed by the political party consisting of duly elected members of parliament and majority of vote casted?

  2. Again, this shows Mr. SENESIE JUNIOR BOIMA is very new on this glorious platform. Completely novice on what is happening qua past posts. If Mr. SENESIE JUNIOR BOIMA had read my past posts, he would not have been in conflict with his thinking, I have time and time again said, that we need a constitutional reform to change the situation and make the police independent from the executive. I even went further, saying that, the police should be answerable to Parliament only. Do you support dictatorship, tyranny, autocracy and barbaric rule or democracy Mr. SENESIE JUNIOR BOIMA?

    Again, I ignore Mr. SENESIE JUNIOR BOIMA and leave his thoughts for the birds. So, Mr. SENESIE JUNIOR BOIMA, I would advice you to read past posts on this glorious platform before making any silly or foolish accusations to mess up any good intentions you might have. Hear Mr. SENESIE JUNIOR BOIMA, somewhere on planet earth, trying to preach Sierra Leone’s constitution to me. God help Mr. SENESIE JUNIOR BOIMA, to become Sierra Leone’s constitutional teacher.

  3. What the opponents of the current SLPP party like Sahr Matturi etc don’t want to accept is that the operations of the three arms of government which are the judiciary, the executive and the legislative are mutually exclusive/inclusive in there operations to the entity called the country/people of Sierra Leone.

    The police is mandated to maintain internal peace for the citizens of a country; and the head of the police should brief the head of the executive branch each week of the previous week internal security matters, since time immemorial including the era of the previous APC GOVERNMENTS as mandated by the constitution of Sierra Leone. Who do you want the IG of police to report/answer to Mr Matturi when the people of Sierra Leone have elected the current SLPP administration to head the executive since April 2018-2023?

  4. I said it earlier, that IG Sovula and his gallant men and women are not independent in carrying out their tasks. It’s impossible to see him succeed where his predecessors have failed. Make no mistake, he will face criticism over any bad decisions he might take directly. What the Bio lead SLPP is now doing, is to keep Dr Sylvia Blyden till they find something that they will never find. Again, barbarity, unlawful incarceration of a straight forward woman, gross violation of her basic human rights and the loop goes on and on.

    Firstly, they started with the prison break that was never broken and now, they are finding any fake evidence, that they will never find. Can you imagine that happening anywhere in the world? The ICC has a lot of job to do because of the overwhelming evidence now at their disposal. Anyway, Dr Sylvia Blyden will be released unconditionally. God bless Dr Sylvia Blyden.

  5. Her arrest is nothing but “orders from the above”, stifling any opposition critical of the current regime. The same tactics were employed towards Mohamed Kamarainba during the earlier months of SLPP taking over power. Just immediately after he criticized the regime over the public radio, he was invited to the CID to give statement. Luckily for him, he was release the same day. Below is one report about that incident.

    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/sierra-leone-police-nabs-opposition-politician/1211567

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