Accra, Feb. 12, GNA – Some Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have expressed worry about the “growing use of the state prosecutorial and judicial power” to punish speech that allegedly injures or damages the reputation of others and state institutions.
“We note with deep concern the apparent resurrection of the discredited criminal libel regime through a series of recent arrests and prosecution of persons for statements made or published in the media,” the CSOs said in a statement.
The statement, jointly issued by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), IMANI Africa and the Africa Center for International Law & Accountability (ACILA), said, the country’s legal system provided for non-criminal or civil avenues for dealing with uses of free speech that injured or infringed on the rights of others.
The CSOs said the abolition of criminal libel in the aftermath of the Rawlings regime in 2001 – a move championed by President Akufo Addo during his tenure as a private lawyer, representing journalists and media houses and, later, in his capacity as Attorney-General, left injured parties free to resort to civil alternatives and remedies to deal with false and libelous publications.
The statement further stated that the law provided offending parties the prospect of avoiding even civil liability by retracting the offending publication and rendering appropriate apology to the injured or offended party.
The statement by the CSOs comes on the back of the prosecution of Mr Mensah Thompson, Executive Director of the Alliance For Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA), on a charge of publication of false news and offensive conduct conducive to the breach of peace.
“He made a post on his Facebook page on or about January 8, 2022, alleging that certain relatives of the President traveled to the United Kingdom on the official presidential jet for pleasure and shopping during the Christmas season.”
It said: “Mr Thompson publicly retracted the allegation and apologized to the Ghana Armed Forces on or about January 9, 2022, following his original post which had called on the Ghana Armed Forces, among others, to explain the circumstances of the alleged use of the presidential jet by the President’s alleged family members.”
According to the statement, Mr Thompson was reportedly arrested and detained at the Teshie District Command of the Ghana Police Service on Wednesday, February 9, 2022.
On Thursday, February 10, 2022, he pleaded not guilty to these charges and was granted bail by the Kaneshie District Court.
The CSOs said as a tool for regulating speech, the criminal law was fraught with the danger of politicisation and selective prosecution, as it left it to a party-aligned Attorney-General, an appointee who served at the pleasure of the President, to determine which or whose allegedly false speech or publication to prosecute and which or whose speech to ignore.
They noted that a return to the use of criminal law enforcement and prosecution to regulate and punish speech would take the country back to “a bygone authoritarian era where journalists and other public speakers were jailed for politically disagreeable libel.”
The CSOs, therefore, called on the Attorney-General to discontinue the prosecution of Mr Thompson and take steps to stop all persons acting under his authority from re-introducing in another guise the long-discredited and abolished criminal libel regime.
The statement further urged media practitioners and users to tone down the inflammatory rhetoric that had contaminated the public space and airwaves, desist from knowingly or recklessly making or publishing false statements, and use, to an extent possible, the Right to Information Act and its processes to access information from public authorities.
GNA