A social justice advocacy organization, Justice Forum LIBERIA (JFL), has vehemently condemned an alleged raping of two South Korean teens by two Liberian Maritime officials and their subsequent arrest.
Browne 37, is Liberia’s Permanent Representative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) based in the UK while Tarr is the Director of the Department of Marine Environmental Protection.
According to Korean media, the pair had travelled to the Port city of Busan, South Korea to attend the GHG SMART Practical Training and Study Visit, which took place from September 19-23.
Report says they were both taken into police custody on Friday after the alleged victims claimed they are teenagers called the police from the two officials’ hotel room that they had been raped.
A JFL press release signed by its Executive Director, Mr. Maxson Kpakio, it is said that the organization is hugely embarrassed by the accusation leveled against Liberia’s top Maritime officials.
Maxson Kpakio said that this news of high level government officials being arrested for an alleged issues of rape especially outside of Liberia isn’t only embarrassing to the government and people of Liberia, but disgraceful, unbelievable, and difficult to handle as a government.
Justice Forum LIBERIA is however rejecting a call made by the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection for the Liberian government to get involved and lobby for the accused to be deported from South Korea so that they can face court trial on their own soil.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kpakio is calling on President George Weah and government to take serious current shortage Liberia stable food, rice that price has since skyrocketed from $13.50 to $18.00 or its equivalent in local currency for a 25kg bag.
He frowned on the President for not holding an emergency meeting with the rice importers in the country in the quest of finding the underlying cause of the rice situation. The Liberian advocate added that such a meeting would have enabled him, the President and his government to understand the situation and reasons behind the disappearance of rice from the market and subsequent price rise.
