By: Richard Mullah
The Media Reform Coordinating Group (MRCG) in collaboration with the Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund, has on Thursday the 13th October 2022, trained journalists on Transitional Justice at the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists Headquarters in Freetown.
In his Statement, Dr. Francis Sowa, the National Coordinator of MRCG intimated galaxy of journalists that the training is geared towards changing the narratives on Transitional Justice in Sierra Leone.
He added that the fundamental purpose of conducting such training was to aid media practitioners to efficaciously report on transitional justice issues.
“The concern of the project at present is that it appears as if some of the things that took us to the conflict, they have started happening in the country and then as media practitioners we have not being adequately reporting on transitional justice issues”, said Dr. Sowa.
According to Dr. Sowa, the aim of the training was to also help change the narratives on transitional justice through media engagement and community meetings.
Ahmed Sahid Nasralla, President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, also disclosed that for journalists to be able to report on transitional justice, one has to have the required knowledge about transitional justice. “So basically this workshop is to make sure that you have the knowledge, the skills to be able to report on transitional justice”, he said.
The President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists also encouraged journalists to take the training very seriously adding that, journalists need to have the knowledge and experience to report on transitional justice and raise the awareness that has been done in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) recommendations. He made specific emphasis the TRC recommendation regarding what the media has done in ensuring that they keep tracks of those recommendations.
Dr. Tonya Musa, Senior lecturer at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, revealed that the transitional justice served as a guiding principle in combating unhealthy environment either as a result of dictatorship, anarchy, bad governance and war which precipitated atrocities. He said those atrocities might be related to crime against humanities. “The idea about transitional justice is to address the key word which is impunity”, Dr. Musa said.
Dr. Tonya Musa affirmed that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was an opportunities for people who were victims of the war. He said Participants were divided into four groups where they presented different topics on transitional justice stories that would help journalists to report on.
