PRESIDENT SIRLEAF WANTS TO SUSPEND CONSTITUTIONAL ARTICLES ON THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH, FREE MOVEMENT AND ELECT THE COUNTRY'S LEADERS
A group of Liberians staged a peaceful demonstration on Thursday near the parliament building in capital Monrovia to protest plans by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to suspend several articles of the constitution as part of government efforts to contain the ongoing Ebola outbreak.
“We are here to call on lawmakers not to concur with the president,” one protester, who declined to be named, told Anadolu Agency.
“She [Sirleaf] does not mean well for our country,” he said.
“The fight against Ebola is a holistic fight. It is the methodology that matters, not suspending fundamental rights,” the angry protester stressed.
Sirleaf recently urged parliament to support the proposed suspension of several articles of Liberia’s constitution, which guarantee the right to free speech, to free movement, to elect the country’s leaders, and to freely engage in labor, among other things.
Sirleaf wants to suspend Article 1 of the national charter, which ensures the citizen’s right to “cause their public servants to leave office and to fill vacancies by regular elections and appointments.”
She also wants to suspend Article 13, which stipulates that all legal residents of Liberia “shall have the right to move freely throughout Liberia, to reside in any part thereof, and to leave therefrom.”
