Sarah King was arrested in broad daylight. It was May 1997 and the West African nation of Sierra Leone had been mired in civil war for six years.

Ms King, a radio journalist in the capital of Freetown, was helping to produce a program dedicated to robust debate on matters of national importance—the cornerstone of a free press and an integral part of any democratic society.

Both the democratically elected government and the rebellious Revolutionary United Front took issue with the nature of the program. "The government targeted me because we were willing to discussion certain policies," Ms King told Media.

"The rebels targeted me because I preached peace."

She became a target of both sides. And so it was that men with guns appeared at her home in the middle of the day, ordering her to come with them. There was no need for them to come at night; no need to practice stealth. "They could do whatever they wanted," Ms King says. "They just appeared and took me away."

"It was very anonymous," she says, remembering. "I still have no idea where the order came from. It could have come from either side."

She was never charged with any crime.

Ms King escaped to Conakry in neighbouring Guinea when her prison came under siege several months after her arrest.

Deeply concerned she may be caught and sent back to face an uncertain fate—Guinea was by no means a stronghold against rebel forces—she went into hiding. Even then she feared her family may be at risk as a result of her actions. All that seems a world away now.

Today, Ms King is studying at Southern Cross University in the town of Lismore on the NSW north coast, where she has lived since February. She hopes to work in the performing arts after graduation. She only took up journalism to make a living—her first love was always drama.

But she is one of more than a dozen Sierra Leonean journalists to have been brought to Australia as a refugee, and Ms King says she has been given a new lease on life. "It's one thousand per cent different here," she says. "I like it very much."

David Addington of the Northern Beaches Refugee Sanctuary says the process of bringing the exiled journalists to Australia had been fraught with cultural, financial and bureaucratic difficulties. It could not have been made possible, he says, without the hard work and dedication of numerous refugee and media organisations, as well as with the support of a network ofindividual Australian journalists.

"In the African tradition, it's very, very difficult to sponsor people other than your family members," he says. "The journalists who were already here wanted to help other journalists, but were in a very difficult situation as to how to go about that.

"Our group agreed to sponsor eleven different journalists and their families.

"We and a number of other groups, including the Association of Sierra Leonean Journalists in Exile and the Australian government, then set up interest-free loan schemes to help those who received humanitarian visas make it to Australia."

The International Federation of Journalists, along with a number of prominent Australian journalists from various news outlets, wrote letters in support of the Sierra Leonean journalists and their families, three of whom were then successful.

"That number at first sounds disappointing," Addington says. "But given that only three to four per cent of people who apply for humanitarian visas are successful, having three families out of eleven succeed is actually really excellent.

"You qualify, in a bizarre sense, on how terrifying your story is. The worse your story is, the more likely you are to get a visa. These journalists had pretty harrowing stories to tell."

And so, on February 20, 2008, Sarah King, Adeyemi Johnson and Edith Caulker arrived in Sydney with their families. They moved to Lismore two days later to embark upon their new lives.

They join a network of Sierra Leonean journalists that spans the country. There are currently refugee journalists in Adelaide, Canberra, Brisbane and, now, Lismore.

But few if any continue to work in the media.

"It's very hard to be a journalist in a foreign country," Addington says. "So much about being a journalist is cultural."

Nonetheless, the three families have made a fist of their new surroundings, he says.

They have become active in their communities, embracing the opportunity to study and winning over all who meet them.

King says she has been made to feel very welcome by the people in her new home town.

But it is unlikely she would be made to feel quite so welcome back in her home country.

Six years after the end of the civil war, the country's journalists continue to be subjected to repressive laws, wrongful imprisonment, violence, and coercion.

In the 2006 Reporters Sans Frontieres Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index, Sierra Leone was ranked 103rd, tying with Indonesia.

Sonny Cole from the Association of Sierra Leonean Journalists in Exile, who arrived in Australia in April 2002 and has worked closely with Addington on getting his colleagues into the country, says while the end of the civil war has brought a certain level of peace to the country, he has no doubt journalists there remain at considerable risk.

Indeed, press freedom remains a matter of grave concern across the African continent, he says.

"In the whole of Africa, if you as a journalist want to report objectively on what the African leaders or people in high places are doing, then you are putting your life on the line," he says. "It is a very dangerous atmosphere for a journalist to work in."

The Australian, 22 September 2008