PHOTO: Protesters expressing their grievances
By Charles Gbayor, maorethason1997@gmail.com
PLEEBO, Liberia-Hundreds of protesters have peacefully taken to the streets in the commercial city of the southeaster Maryland County, call on local authorities and national government’s attention to the mysterious death of a student of the Tubman University (TU) in Harper city, some 555 kilometers from Monrovia.
Student Anthony Tiaka’s body was last Sunday discovered in his room at his Zone 5A residence. It is still not known what exactly caused his death.
But a report quotes a 12-member coroner Jury as saying that when Tiaka’s body was examined his eyes were bruised, his forehead hit, piercing over his penis, bleeding from other parts of his body.
“We are seriously not convinced that our friend Who was Last seen Thursday June 30th 2022 until the discovery of his lifeless body on the 3 July 2022,” the protesters said in a press statement here on Wednesday, July 6, 2022.
The latest street protest is one of several citizens’ demonstrations seen in this part of Liberia over the past year. The last major street protest was back in 2021, but that one turned into a big riot over the killing of a grade school student and commercial motorcyclist in Pleebo, which caused serious destruction of properties including the vandalizing of the Harper Central Prison. That prompted the imposition of a curfew in both Pleebo and Harper by President George Weah for several days.
According to the organizers of the protest, their protest actions include gathering at the Grant Public School just before entering Pleebo, assembling the local government offices in the district and submission of a petition for a forensic investigation into the death of the TU submitted to Maryland County Superintendent George A. Prowd.
The Students and friends of the late Anthony Tiaka were seen chanting battle cry, “Tiaka Justice, Tiaka Justice, Ayeah Justice” as they paraded through the streets.
With many of them dressed in black, the protesters maintained believe their colleague “never die a natural death”. But this comes in the wake of reports of mysterious deaths in the country.
Speaking at compound Hill, Paul Blayon, a Student of Tubman University said they have not come to vandalize people’s properties or to cause confusion, but they said “to constructively protest through the streets and submit our Petition but until Justice prevails, we will not rest”.
In their press statement, the Justice for Anthony Tiaka group said it “consists of friends and Ideological comrades, well-wishers and sympathizers of Anthony Tiaka”.
The protesters said from all indication and circumstances Surrounding this demise of one of our kind, we strongly believe he (Anthony Tiaka) was gruesomely murdered in cold blood. He was a promising young man and deserves fundamental human rights.
“We ask the government of Liberia to carefully handle this case as a Matter of urgency as we unwaveringly pursue justice for an innocent young man who deserves to be alive as those Who allegedly murdered him. Nevertheless, we are not satisfied with the way and manner in which this case is proceeding. That by now, we expect the Police investigation report to have been available and published. That we expect that the coroner’s jury have indicted suspects that should be subject to an ongoing investigation by now,” the Maryland County protesters added.
“We will stand for justice with our last breath,” the protesters said in their statement.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the protesters say they have unanimously resolved that failure to establish and guarantee the path of Justice for our beloved fallen within 7 days, they’ll take unspecified non- Violent revolutionary actions aimed towards the uncompromising pursuance of Justice.”
“Friends, members of the Press, Government of Liberia, finally, we the Justice For Martin Luther King Jr intimated that “True Peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the Presence of Justice.” There will be no peace in the absence of Justice for comrade Anthony Tiaka. Justice we seek as a people and justice we must get,” the protesters in Maryland County concluded.