Website Launched to Cover Taylor Trial

Civil society groups today launch a project to provide daily news and expert analysis of the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor.

The groups have inaugurated a website, www.CharlesTaylorTrial.org , aimed at providing West Africans - including the people of Liberia and Sierra Leone - with detailed reporting on the trial. Taylor is being tried at The Hague in the Netherlands, for fear that holding proceedings in West Africa could destabilise the region.

The Open Society Institute and the International Senior Lawyers Project are the co-sponsors of the site.

"It is the first time a former head of state or government has been prosecuted in an international criminal court for crimes committed in Africa against Africans," Amnesty International noted in a statement.

It was "vitally important" that the landmark trial was communicated to victims and to the peoples of Sierra Leone and Liberia, Amnesty added. But many people knew neither that the trial was beginning nor why it had been moved to Europe.

Link to allAfrica.com: West Africa: Website Launched to Cover Taylor Trial (Page 1 of 1)