Event Summary
On 20 August 2025, Thomas Dixon, Editor of New Age Newspaper and Chairman of the Guild of Newspaper Editors, was summoned by Sierra Leone’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) following a complaint by Chinese-owned Leone Rock Metal Group. The company accused him of cyberbullying and stalking under the Cyber Security and Crime Act (2022), after he published investigative reports alleging corruption and labor violations. Despite the Independent Media Commission (IMC) dismissing the complaint, the company escalated the matter to CID, bypassing media regulation in favour of criminal prosecution. Dixon was interrogated for hours and released on NLe 100,000 bail. Civil society groups, led by the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), condemned the interrogation as a misuse of cybersecurity legislation warning that vague provisions in the law—particularly around cyberbullying—are being exploited to intimidate and harass journalists and silence critics under the guise of cybersecurity. On 28 August 2025, Shar Maturi, senior reporter at Standard Times Newspaper, was detained by the CID on cyberbullying and stalking allegations—just hours after Thomas Dixon’s release—before being freed following SLAJ-led negotiations. The back-to-back detentions of prominent journalists under the Cyber Security Act have intensified fears of a coordinated effort to criminalize investigative reporting, signaling a dangerous shift toward legal repression that undermines press freedom, weakens institutional accountability, and chills civic space in Sierra Leone. The implications are severe—journalists may self-censor, media independence is undermined, and public access to information is curtailed.