On September 8, 2025, a court in Liberia's central Rivercess County sentenced Eric Opa Doue, founder of the Facebook-based Z-MaC Liberia Inc. news outlet, to 30 days in prison, the journalist and Julius Kullie Kanubah, the Press Union of Liberia’s (PUL) president, told CPJ.
Doue was jailed for failing to comply with the Cestos City court’s earlier order to present hard copies of three national dailies containing an apology for his August 11 report alleging that police officer Ojuku Weeks bribed court officials to avoid prosecution for possessing hard drugs, those sources said. The article has since been taken offline.
On September 3, the court had directed Doue to publish a retraction and an apology in at least three national daily newspapers, on his personal and professional Facebook pages, and on his other social media platforms before September 8, Doue told CPJ.
Doue said he presented the court with a hard copy of the Facebook retraction but not those published by the national newspapers because he could not travel some 200 kilometers to the capital, Monrovia, to obtain copies.
On September 12, the court reversed its ruling and released Doue, following interventions by PUL and other local media and civil society groups.
Doue was first arrested on August 13 after a court in Yarpah issued a writ of arrest, reviewed by CPJ, accusing him of contempt of court for his reporting on alleged judicial corruption. Doue said he was released after about an hour.
Doue was detained for a second time on August 15, after the Cestos City court issued a writ of arrest on August 14, reviewed by CPJ, which accused Doue of criminal coercion in violation of section 14.27 of the Penal Code, his lawyer, Bruce Boweh, told CPJ.
Boweh said this writ was issued in response to a complaint by Weeks and that Doue was detained overnight and released the next day.
CPJ’s calls and text messages to Weeks requesting comment went unanswered.