IPNEWS: Liberia’s post-war human rights gains remain vulnerable to persistent institutional weaknesses, with police brutality, arbitrary detention, restrictions on peaceful assembly and alleged interference with the press continuing to test the country’s commitment to constitutional freedoms.
The warning is contained in the 2025 Annual Human Rights Situation Report of the Independent National Commission on Human Rights (INCHR), which presents what it describes as a mixed human rights picture. While the report records improvements in some of the most serious indicators—including no deaths attributed to excessive use of force by state security and no deaths in custody during the reporting period—it says non-lethal violations and weaknesses in accountability remain major concerns.
The findings are particularly significant for a country whose modern history has been deeply shaped by state repression, political violence and armed conflict. Liberia’s two civil wars, fought between 1989 and 2003, were characterized by widespread violations including extrajudicial killings, massacres, torture, rape, forced recruitment and the use of child soldiers.
Against that historical background, the INCHR’s latest findings suggest that Liberia’s human-rights challenge has evolved from the mass atrocities of wartime into a more institutional question: whether the state can consistently protect citizens from abuse by security institutions and guarantee fundamental freedoms in everyday life.
Justice Minister and Attorney General Cllr. N. Oswald Tweh, speaking for the Executive Branch at the report’s launch, acknowledged the commission’s concerns and pledged government cooperation.
“The government takes human rights very seriously because it guides our actions on what to do,” Cllr. Tweh said.
He added that the report would help government identify and address its shortcomings domestically and internationally.
“This report will guide our action on what to do so we can improve on our shortfalls both domestically and internationally, and we will collaborate and work with you.”
The government’s response is important because the report does not portray Liberia as operating a deliberate policy of systematic human-rights repression. Instead, the INCHR distinguishes between government policy and institutional failures, pointing to misconduct, weak accountability, inadequate enforcement and deficiencies within the justice and security systems.
That distinction, however, does not eliminate state responsibility. Where public officials violate constitutionally protected rights, the government remains responsible for investigating misconduct, providing remedies and preventing recurrence.
Among the most troubling findings is the continued scrutiny of the Liberia National Police.
The commission documented allegations of excessive use of force, arbitrary arrests and prolonged pre-trial detention, as well as restrictions on freedom of assembly and expression.
The constitution provides important safeguards against arbitrary detention, including the right of an accused person to be brought before a court within the constitutionally prescribed period. Yet prolonged pre-trial detention has remained a recurring problem in Liberia’s justice system.
The INCHR’s findings therefore expose a familiar contradiction: Liberia has constitutional and statutory protections for human rights, but implementation remains uneven.
The absence of deaths resulting from excessive force in 2025 is nevertheless a notable development. It suggests some progress compared with periods in which security-force operations resulted in fatalities. But the commission’s broader message is that measuring human-rights performance solely by deaths would be misleading.
A person does not have to die for a fundamental right to have been violated. Arbitrary detention, assault, intimidation, unlawful restrictions on movement or expression and excessive force can themselves constitute serious violations.
The report also raises concerns about the treatment of journalists.
The INCHR cited allegations involving the manhandling of a BBC Liberia correspondent while on assignment and the alleged assault of an editor of the New Republic newspaper, including claims that the journalist’s phone was seized and photographs deleted.
Such incidents strike at one of the central pillars of the post-war democratic order—the ability of journalists to report freely without intimidation by state authorities.
Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are protected under Liberia’s Constitution. The broader principle is also central to Liberia’s international human-rights commitments.
The concern is not merely whether individual journalists were mistreated. It is whether such incidents create a wider climate in which journalists become reluctant to investigate police conduct, corruption, public spending or government policy.
A democracy can tolerate criticism; indeed, the ability to criticize those in power is one of the mechanisms through which democratic accountability works.
The country’s treatment of public demonstrations also came under scrutiny.
The INCHR highlighted the July 2025 “Enough is Enough” protest, during which police restricted access around key government installations, including the Executive Mansion and Capitol Building.
The demonstration was organized amid complaints about governance, economic hardship, corruption and rule-of-law concerns. The government had engaged organizers before the protest, with the Ministry of Justice and police emphasizing the need for peaceful conduct.
The controversy illustrates the difficult balance between public order and constitutional freedom.
The state has a legitimate responsibility to protect government facilities and public safety. But restrictions on demonstrations must also be lawful, necessary and proportionate. Otherwise, measures introduced in the name of security can themselves become instruments for suppressing legitimate dissent.
The INCHR’s concern is therefore broader than one protest: it touches on how Liberia will manage political disagreement as its democratic institutions mature.
The contemporary human-rights debate in the country cannot be separated from the it’s history.
The 1980 military coup that brought Samuel K. Doe to power was followed by growing political repression and ethnic polarization. Following the failed 1985 coup attempt led by Thomas Quiwonkpa, government forces carried out reprisals against communities associated with the perceived opposition. Human Rights Watch documented killings, arbitrary detention and repression during this period.
The situation deteriorated dramatically after Charles Taylor’s NPFL launched its rebellion in December 1989.
The first civil war produced widespread atrocities by multiple armed actors. Civilians were killed, tortured, displaced and subjected to sexual violence, while children were forcibly recruited into armed groups.
The second civil war, which ended in 2003, generated another wave of abuses. Human Rights Watch has described Liberia’s two conflicts as involving widespread and systematic violations of international human-rights and humanitarian law.
The post-war period brought important reforms, including the establishment of the INCHR in 2005 and the strengthening of institutions intended to protect citizens from abuses by the state and other actors.
But the legacy of impunity has remained one of Liberia’s most difficult challenges.
A 2025 joint submission to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review noted that, despite progress, Liberia had still not fully established accountability for past gross human-rights violations and war crimes.
That unresolved history matters because institutional culture does not change simply because a war ends. Police professionalism, judicial independence, accountability and respect for dissent require sustained investment and enforcement.
The significance of the 2025 INCHR report is therefore not that Liberia has returned to its darkest past. The evidence presented does not support such a conclusion.
Rather, the report raises a different warning—the institutions created to prevent a return to that past must function effectively.
The commission’s recommendations include strengthening the Liberia National Police Professional Standards Division, addressing prolonged pre-trial detention and developing a clear framework for policing demonstrations in accordance with national and international standards.
The INCHR has also called for greater transparency in implementing its recommendations, including quarterly updates from the Ministry of Justice on actions taken.
Such measures could transform the report from another catalogue of violations into an accountability tool.
Reform is now the critical test
For the Boakai administration, the report presents both a challenge and an opportunity.
The absence of evidence of a deliberate government policy to systematically violate human rights provides the administration with an important distinction from Liberia’s history of overt state repression. But that distinction will have little meaning to citizens whose rights are violated by police officers, whose cases languish in detention or whose ability to protest is restricted.
The government’s stated willingness to work with the INCHR will therefore have to be measured by concrete action.
The country’s human-rights story has moved a long way from the mass killings and systematic abuses of the civil-war era. Yet the country’s democratic future depends on ensuring that the smaller, everyday violations of rights are not normalized.
The central lesson of history is that impunity rarely begins with the most extreme abuses. It can begin when institutions tolerate lesser violations, fail to investigate misconduct or allow political considerations to override the rule of law.
As the INCHR’s 2025 findings demonstrate, Liberia has made progress—but the unfinished work is substantial.
For a nation still carrying the scars of decades of conflict, protecting human rights is not simply a constitutional obligation; it is part of preventing history from repeating itself. Courtey of Daily Observer Newspaper
