Sierra Leone

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders has received new information and requests your urgent intervention in the following situation in Sierra Leone.

Six personnes ont été condamnées à des peines de cinq et six mois de prison pour avoir détruit 40 palmiers à huile appartenant à l’entreprise Socfin.

Senior State Counsel, Simeon Allieu in the just concluded case between the Malen Land Owners Association and Socfin Agricultural Company, yesterday objected to the judgement passed by Justice Desmond Babatunde Edwards at the Bo High Court.

A Sierra Leone court has convicted six people opposed to a palm oil project in which French conglomerate Bollore owns a major stake of destroying trees and inciting the local population to protest over land rights.

Kurt Langbein, director of a documentary film, “Land Grabbing“ visits the scenes of land grabs and talks to farmers, local communities and to the investors behind the schemes. The injustice of this destructive “development” model could not be clearer.

La Convergence Globale des Luttes pour la Terre et l’Eau – Afrique de l’Ouest vous invite à rejoindre et soutenir la Caravane ouest-africaine pour la terre, l’eau et les semences, qui mobilisera 15 pays de la sous-région en mars 2016

The Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles – West Africa invites you to join the West African Caravan for Land, Water and Seeds, which will mobilize 15 countries of the sub-region in March 2016

Reports about land-grabs in Africa often attack the corporations that stand to profit from such projects. But little is said of the international development banks that fund the projects.

About 1 million hectares of lands in Sierra Leone are presently in the hands of multinational companies, says Green Scenery.

Land grabbing is a direct acquisition of land shaped by failures of democracy, and economic governance.

African Agriculture Fund Policy Statement Regarding Tax and Transparency

Chinnakannan Sivasankaran, “one of the world’s largest farmland holders”, allegedly used bankruptcy for fun and profit.