World Press Freedom Committee (Reston)
8 February 2008
Upon the recommendation of the International Press Institute (IPI), the World Press Freedom Committee ( http://www.wpfc.org ) - an organization representing 45 press freedom groups from throughout the world - made a Fund Against Censorship grant to fund the legal defense of Thabo Thakalekoala, a Lesotho journalist who is unjustly in prison facing the death penalty.
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Lesotho obtained independence in 1966 and clearly this does not mean anything to those in power! How can you arrest a journalist? How can you arrest DEMOCRACY! JOURNALISM IS AN ARM OF DEMOCRACY! This act of injustice is deplorable.
I live in the United States temporarily and I have been greatly worried by leaders who have watched AIDS and HIV rampage communities in Lesotho.
It is in Lesotho that friends and neighbours were raped by those who have AIDS and HIV in order to get immunity from these ailments. It is in this country that food and drug and money donations from overseas land in the hands of those with guns. Evidently the law has gone blind from corruption. If the country is drunk with independence, may be it is time it is assimilated into South Africa. Death Penalty is Cannibalism! Death Penalty of a journalist engaged in democracy is the reason to seize and arrest the drunken legal system.
I know Mr. Thakalekoala in person. He was at the National University of Lesotho with my brother, Thomas. He is a very brilliant, and highly gifted man and I have no doubt that he had excercised the best judgement he could before reading the "Offending Letter".
As a Mosotho living out of the country I am ashamed of Lesotho, a country I have proud of for so many years!