The Global Justice and Research Project (GJRP) and eight other human rights organisations have called on the government of Liberia to protect the rights of human rights defenders.

Development Diaries learnt that the rights activists made the call on the back of what they called recent credible threats against human rights defenders.

Staff of GJRP and the Secretary-General of the Civil Society Human Rights Advocacy Platform of Liberia, Adama Dempster, were said to have been threatened.

The intimidation and threats against GJRP staff and witnesses, according to the group of human rights defenders, started immediately after Agnes Reeves Taylor, who was indicted in 2017 in the United Kingdom for torture, returned to Liberia in July 2020.

It was said that the GJRP staff, including the Director, Hassan Bility, received multiple threatening phone calls.

The human rights organisations urged the Liberian government to ensure that human rights defenders in Liberia are protected from harassment and threats by individuals within the government.

The nine organisations that made this call were Aaron Weah, Researcher; Centre for Justice and Accountability; Centre for Civil and Political Rights; Civil Society Human Rights Advocacy Platform of Liberia; Civitas Maxima; Human Rights Watch; Independent Human Rights Investigators; the Advocates for Human Rights; and the Global Justice and Research Project.

Source: Human Rights Watch