The lawsuit relates to an advertisement about land administration published in March by Front Page Africa. "Liberia has a troubling history of libel lawsuits where applicants ask for exorbitant damages simply to harass and intimidate journalists, resulting in their imprisonment or the closure of news outlets," said Angela Quintal, CPJ Africa program coordinator. Sieh told CPJ that the paper received a request in late March from the lawyers of the now-plaintiffs, asking it to retract the advertisement. Sieh told CPJ that, to his knowledge, Front Page Africa was the only newspaper to be sued. Plaintiff Henry Morgan told CPJ, "Whether we are going to go after the other papers [that published the original advertisement] is up to our discretion."

Source: Front Page Africa April 12, 2018 02:01 UTC