Accra, March 31, GNA – The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), protesting the circulation of fake videos alleging abuses against civilians by its personnel in the Operation COVID SAFETY, said it has initiated investigations to prosecute the producers.
“The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has noted with concern a developing trend on social media over the past few days, involving the re-cycling of past video clips, (some of which did not originate in Ghana); re-packaging them as current episodes, and attributing them to the GAF,” it said in a statement, signed by the Director of Public Affairs, Colonel E. Aggrey Quashie.
“It is unfortunate that at a time when the will of the Nation is united to confront a real threat, certain groups of people continue with the deliberate distribution of misinformation materials on social media.
“While admonishing the public to be mindful of such individuals whose stock-in-trade is to create confusion, we have commenced investigations into persons peddling false news with the view to prosecuting such persons”.
The GAF, however, assured should there be any genuine incident of the wrongful use of force by its personnel, they would be investigated and those found culpable be disciplined in line with GAF Regulations.
It explained that: “On Monday, 30th March 2020, the first day of the exercise, several videos showing alleged brutalities by personnel of Operation COVID SAFETY on some citizens were posted on social media by certain individuals.
” Checks reveal that most of these videos are old incidents that are unrelated to the ongoing exercise.
” Some of the videos show incidents which occurred in neighboring francophone countries, whilst others are incidents which occurred several months ago, unrelated to the current exercise.”
“Moreover, the people in some of these videos in circulation are not members of the Police and Military”.
The GAF said it had a cause to believe that circulation of unrelated and doctored social media material was orchestrated by certain individuals with the objective of casting the security agencies in the ongoing operation in bad light.
It recalled the broadcast of a similar video by a major television station over the weekend, which it said, had since been retracted with an apology, and cautioned against its recurrence.
GNA