The Sierra Leone Police were on Thursday caught up in a serious democratic mess and human rights violation after they arrested and detained three journalists, civil society activist and forty-six students from the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology.

The students staged a peaceful protest over the refusal of government to pay fees to enable them resume classes after they have been at home for over six months.

While the police hierarchy at George Street could not better explain as to why the three journalists were arrested, human rights defenders believe that the only crime they committed was that they were doing their legitimate job as journalists.

'I was arrested after I took out my notepad to take some jottings. The police refused to recognise me as a journalist even when I displayed my press card to them," said Concord Times reporter,Saidu Yusufu Bangura.

The three journalists, including Saidu Yusufu Bangura from Concord Times, Morlai Kamara from Newswatch and Chernor Jalloh from Radio Democracy 98.1, were later released after the intervention of the journalism fraternity-the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists.

Thomas Moore Conteh of the Citizens Advocacy Network-Sierra Leone and students of the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology spent the night at the Criminal Investigations Department headquarters in Freetown and were charged to court, but granted bail on Friday,6th March.

After his release on Friday, Thomas Moore Conteh of the Citizens Advocacy Network-Sierra Leone encouraged students of Limkokwing University of Creative Technology 'to remain calm and have faith that the storm of deadlock in negotiations will eventually pass.'

Several civil society activists and human rights defenders frowned at the action of the police, to conduct a mass arrest and detention of peaceful protesters in a democratic dispensation.

Meanwhile, the Government of Sierra Leone has taken position on the Limkokwing University issue and resolved not to pay the three thousand United States Dollars tuition fee for each of over one thousand students that were under government scholarship. It is yet unclear whether the university would succumb to what government has decided.

Copyright Concord Times. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)., source News Service English