Liberian Police Seal Newspaper Office; Press Union of Liberia Condems Closure

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Dozens of riot police have sealed the offices of a newspaper critical of the Liberian government and officers attempted to detain its publisher. Police spokesman Sam Collins says the paper's criticisms could "plunge the country into confusion" when the government is struggling to contain an Ebola outbreak, AP reports

Philibert Brown's National Chronicle has often accused President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's government of corruption and on Wednesday it called for the government to step down.

Brown has been ordered to report for questioning Friday.

Sirleaf's government has come under stiff criticism for its record on press freedoms. Sirleaf has signed the Declaration of Table Mountain, which calls for the Africa-wide repeal of defamation and "insult" laws, but multiple libel convictions have been handed down since she came to power in 2006.

Liberian policemen, right, dressed in riot gear disperse a crowd of people that blocked a main road after the body of someone suspected of dying from the Ebola virus was not removed by health workers in the city of Monrovia, Liberia. Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)

Meanwhile the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) is disappointed and disgusted by Thursday's forced and illegal closure of the National Chronicle Newspaper and the arrest of several staff of the paper including News Editor Emmanuel Mensah and IT Officer Emmanuel Logan, and the manhandling of Philibert S. Browne, Jr.

The Press Union sees these actions as a further expression of intolerance and an unwarranted attack on the free press, and calls upon President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to immediately denounce this action, release the staff and reopen the National Chronicle.

PUL President Abdullai Kamara say this action, which is yet to be explained from the highest level of the Liberia National Police, "strengthens the distrust between the government and the media, undermines the rule of laws and lays to waste the fruitful collaboration that has existed in the fight against the ebola virus."

Meanwhile, all members of the Press Union are invited to a mass emergency meeting at 12 noon tomorrow Friday, August 14, 2014 at the headquarters on Clay Street to chart further options.