Monrovia - Liberia said on Friday it was
banning journalists from Ebola clinics,
defying media rights campaigners who
have warned panicked African
governments against "muzzling" reporters
in response to the crisis.

Government spokesperson Isaac Jackson
made the announcement as he was
questioned on a radio phone-in show
about reporters being barred from
covering a strike at a Monrovia Ebola
treatment unit (ETU).

"Journalists are no longer allowed to enter
ETUs. These journalists enter the ETUs and
cross red lines," Jackson, the deputy
information minister, told listeners to
commercial station Sky FM.
"They violate people's privacy, take
pictures that they will sell to international
institutions. We are putting an end to
that".

Journalists had earlier been denied access
to the Island Clinic in Monrovia to cover a
nationwide "go slow" day of action by
healthcare workers demanding risk
bonuses for treating Ebola.
The minister told the Monrovia-based
station he would insist that journalists
report his statements from now on rather
than what they saw for themselves
.
“Go-slow action”
"There is no protest, everything is fine
with the healthcare workers and patients
are well taken care of," he said of the
clinic.

Earlier, a caller identifying himself as a
nurse at the centre told the station that
patients had been dying because they were
not receiving adequate care.

"We, the nurses, cannot work because the
hygienists have stopped working. The
patients are dying. Something needs to be
done. The go-slow action is killing our
people," he said.

Sources from global aid agency Medecins
Sans Frontieres (MSF; Doctors Without
Borders), which runs a unit of around 250
beds in Monrovia, said it would be writing
to the government to ask to be excluded
from the ban.

Liberia is ranked 89th out of 180 countries
in the 2014 press freedom index produced
by Reporters Without Borders. Sierra
Leone is 72nd while Guinea is ranked
102nd.

The media rights campaign group warned
that panicked governments fighting the
epidemic were "quarantining" reporters to
prevent them covering the crisis.
"Combating the epidemic needs good
media reporting but panicked
governments are muzzling journalists," it
said in a statement.