African Platform to Protect Whistleblowers Launched in Senegal

Tue, Mar 7, 2017 | By publisher


BREAKING NEWS, Business

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THE Plateforme de Protection des Lanceurs d’Alerte en Afrique, PPLAAF, was billed to be officially launched during a press conference in Dakar on Tuesday, March 7, 2017.

The PPLAAF is a non-governmental organisation registered under Senegalese law initiated by William Bourdon, lawyer and president of the French NGO Sherpa, that is comprised of experts who will help, advise and support whistleblowers. Whistleblowing is when a citizen or employee exposes secretive acts of corruption, injustice, abuse of power or public health threats. The action or omission exposed by the whistleblower can be illegal, but it can also be against the general interest or harmful to public health or the environment.

 The PPLAAF believes that the price of doing the right thing should not include sacrificing one’s life, freedom, family, income, job, career or health. In this capacity, PPLAAF plays the intermediary role by assembling a community of in-house and external experts to help ensure that the perils and threats usually associated with ‘blowing the whistle’ are overcome.

“We need to help the African citizens, these whistleblowers who wish to disclose sensitive information within contexts that can be particularly difficult and dangerous”, Bourdon said. “The idea of PPLAAF is to protect these people, whether they are bank employees, soldiers or civil servants, and who take the risk by putting themselves in an extremely vulnerable situation simply by fighting to build the rule of law and democracy”.

PPLAAF provides technical, legal and media assistance to these potential whistleblowers, whether they are from Africa or the information they want to share is related to Africa. PPLAAF, through its website, gives them an encrypted communication system and a secured way to transfer information, as well as a hotline.

PPLAAF gathers numerous lawyers from different countries, legal organisations and NGOs ready to accompany them before, during, and after they make a disclosure. PPLAAF will put them in touch with investigative journalists from Africa and elsewhere, in order to facilitate the investigations and the disclosure of information while protecting the whistleblower’s identity.

PPLAAF will also work with policy-makers and activists to pass strong laws to protect whistleblowers from reprisals and threats, and provide them with remedies for victimisation.

The press conference was scheduled to hold on March 7 11 am at the Good Rade Café in Dakar. The founders of PPLAAF will be present: William Bourdon, Baltasar Garzon, Khadija Sharife, Henri Thulliez and Mark Worth. Several supporters of the project will also be present.

—  Mar 7, 2017 @ 15:25 GMT

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