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For the reason that begin of the yr, a minimum of three journalists and one distinguished social activist have been prosecuted in Ghana for what authorities deemed are unfounded statements..
These developments have many within the West African nation anxious that the freedom of speech, a proper assured underneath Ghana’s 1992 Structure, is being curtailed.
On February 10, Accra FM radio presenter Kwabena Bobie Ansah was charged with the “publication of false information and offensive conduct.” Police had detained him after he acknowledged that the First Girl Rebecca Akufo-Addo had fraudulently obtained state land for personal use. The case remains to be pending.
Days earlier, one other TV and radio presenter who had been picked up by police after criticizing the federal government on air appeared in courtroom. Blessed Godsbrain Good, who works for Media Common TV, was initially accused of constructing “unsavory” feedback however prosecutors later modified the cost to one in all extortion.
Oheneba Boamah Bennie, a host and commentator for the privately-owned Energy FM in Accra, was this month sentenced to 2 weeks in jail and fined 3,000 Ghana cedis ($468) for contempt of courtroom. The case introduced in opposition to him centered round a video posted on his Fb web page in 2021. Within the video, Bennie alleged within the video that President Nana Akufo-Addo had conspired with judges to affect Ghana’s 2020 elections.
The federal government’s efficiency has been within the highlight these days, with Ghanaians mobilizing underneath the hashtag #FixTheCountry to demand good governance, accountability and higher dwelling situations
The pattern is being watched
The Committee to Defend Journalists (CPJ) condemned the conviction of Oheneba Boamah Bennie.
“Journalists shouldn’t be jailed in reference to their reporting or commentary about public figures, whom one would hope would have a thicker pores and skin in relation to criticism,” a CPJ assertion learn.
A couple of days after Bennie was sentenced, police arrested a promnent social activist and chief of Ghana’s FixTheCountry youth stress group on expenses of treason. Oliver Barker-Vormawor had warned on his Fb web page of a coup within the occasion that Parliament passes a controversial digital levy invoice.
He was arraigned in courtroom on February 14 and stays in detention.
In defending the arrest of the journalists, police argue that they’re merely discharging their duties. Lawmaker and former journalist Alhassan Suhuyini says he’s anxious concerning the rising pattern.
“Many journalists have suffered one in all type of harassment or one other by the hands of individuals claiming to be performing within the title of the state. There was a cause why the prison libel regulation was repealed and it’s an irony that the present president has through the years taken delight within the function that he performed in repealing the prison libel regulation,” Suhuyini instructed reporters in Accra.
Nana-Akufo Addo has been Ghana’s chief since January 2017
President Akufo-Addo had pushed for the repeal of the prison libel and seditious libel legal guidelines in Ghana when he was nonetheless an activist. The regulation was fraught with the risks. It left prosecutions as much as a party-aligned attorney-general who served on the pleasure of the president. It was finally repealed in 2001,giving respite to the media and the general public respite.
Ghana’s 1992 Structure states: “All individuals shall have the fitting to — (a) freedom of speech and expression, which shall embrace freedom of the press and different media.” The provision was important, contemplating the criminalization of speech underneath previous navy regimes with journalists and political opponents of the ruling class struggling essentially the most.
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Ghana’s media panorama grew to become vibrant on account of the 1992 Structure
A ‘resurrection’ of prison libel?
Cvil society teams have detected a shift amid the spate of courtroom circumstances involving journalists..The Ghana Middle for Democratic Improvement, IMANI Africa and Africa Middle for Worldwide Regulation & Accountability outlined theirs in a joint assertion.
“The underlisted Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) observe with deep concern the obvious resurrection of the discredited prison libel regime by way of a collection of current arrests and prosecution of individuals for statements made or revealed within the media,” the organizations mentioned.
“We’re deeply troubled by the rising use of the prosecutorial and judicial energy of the State to punish criminally speech that allegedly falsely injures or damages the repute of different individuals or of an establishment of state.”
Within the Nineteen Nineties, the organizations added, “the prison regulation was utilized in exactly the way in which it’s now getting used: to prosecute and punish journalists and public audio system for allegedly false or defamatory statements in opposition to sure members of the family or associates of the President.”
Ruling occasion lawmaker Alexander Afenyo Markin denied that the state is coming after outspoken journalists or attempting to curtail free speech. In parliament he mentioned journalists needs to be cautious in discharging their work in an effort to keep away from such therapies.
“We now have a whole lot of bloggers, the form of misrepresentation and all that, needs to be of concern to all of us, Let’s encourage them to be vibrant, to report, to jot down the information however to be very goal in the way in which they do their factor.”
Media urged to tone down rhetoric
Tanko Zakariah, a media ethics lecturer on the Ghana Institute of Journalism in Accra instructed DW that what shouldn’t be ignored is the accountability that comes with freedom of speech.
“Freedom and independence of the media and freedom of speech is a constitutional assure according to worldwide requirements. However clearly in these legal guidelines it does say that these freedoms come with out some kind of obligations. In different phrases, they don’t seem to be absolute freedoms, they arrive with some {qualifications}.” Zakariah defined.
“Folks need to be accountable when exercising their rights as a result of that very same rights they’re exercising, others have additionally been given their elementary human rights.”
The three civil society teams that expressed their issues about curtailed free speech additionally provided recommendation to journalists.
“We additionally urge media practitioners and customers to tone down the inflammatory rhetoric that has contaminated our public sq. and airwaves, desist from knowingly or recklessly making or publishing false statements, and use, to the extent doable, the Proper to Data Act and its processes to entry info from public authorities.”
A number of of Ghana’s political and authorized analysts see the scenario as one which pertains not solely to freedom of speech.
In a current media dialogue, laywer Kofi Bentil mentioned he sees a risk to democracy in a rustic with a ruling political class that he believes is turning into illiberal.
“There’s something I name the downward political spiral and this downward political spiral, throughout regimes, you see it. I feel that our pals in energy needs to be cautious of this phenomenon. You will have a scenario the place someone makes a put up and also you perceive what he’s speaking about and also you drop on him, you detain him, you begin arresting journalists all over,” he mentioned.
Edited by: Benita van Eyssen
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