(Thursday, May 21, 2015): The Press Union of Liberia (PUL) will on Friday, May 22, open a book of condolence in memory of fallen Liberia journalist John G. Taweh.

The book will be opened 11am at the Union’s Clay Street Headquarters, with family members, well-wishers and friends in attendance.

Journalist Taweh died at his residence in Gardnersville on Saturday, May 2, after a protracted illness and will be interred on Saturday, May 23 at the Neezoe Cemetery in Paynesville.

Following a wake-keeping event Friday night at his residence (behind MVTC in Paynesville), family members told the PUL that Taweh’s remains will be removed from the Anderson Funeral Home in Gardnersville at 7am on Saturday. It will be taken to the Church of Christ inside Chicken Soup Factory for funeral rites, before interment. 

The PUL and its members were shocked when the death news of Journalist Taweh hit Zwedru City, Grand Gedeh County, where dozens of Liberian journalists had gathered to celebrate Word Press Freedom Day.

“It is shocking to hear the death news of one of our oldest professional colleagues,” PUL President K. Abdullai Kamara said in a statement. “Taweh was an example of the kind of professional journalist we want to see in our country, and his departing is painful.”

Kamara said the Taweh’s death is painful because it comes at a period when all journalists should be standing for freedom, but “unfortunately, he was never freed from a protracted illness.”

Taweh, a German-trained journalist who accumulated more than 30 years of experience in active journalism in Liberia, worked at the Liberia News Agency, Talking Drum Studio, Mercy Corps Rural Communications Project as well as the London-based West Africa Magazine.