By Eric Appah Marfo
Accra, April 22, GNA — Government has been asked to repeal “repressive” sections of the Electronic Communications Act and the Criminal and Other Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) being “weaponised to muzzle free speech.”
Mr Albert Kwabena Dwumfour, President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), speaking at a press conference in Accra, said Ghana’s press freedom environment was deteriorating and the “abuse of the two controversial laws had contributed massively to the deterioration.”
“It is our view therefore that efforts to bring a positive change should begin with a reconsideration of those laws,” he added.
The press conference was jointly organised by the GJA, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA), and the Private Newspaper Publishers Association (PRINPAG) in Accra to address the Criminalisation of Free Speech, particularly against Journalists.
It follows the recent detention for seven days of Mr Noah Nartey Dameh of Radio Ada on false publication charges in connection with a critical Facebook post.
The GJA President said Mr Dameh posted on his Facebook wall that the Police had abused one Benjamin Anim, a citizen of Ada and a patient at a hospital, by chaining him to his hospital bed, accompanied by a picture of the chained Anim alongside a picture of businessman Daniel McCorley (McDan) whom the journalist accused of instigating the police action.
He said following this post, which was made in May 2022, the Police summoned Mr Dameh, claiming that one Bernard Korley, a cousin of McDan, had filed a defamation complaint against him (Dameh).
Mr Dwumfour said the journalist was briefly detained and granted bail and after reporting to the Police several times together with a couple of court appearances, he was in December 2022, freed by the Tema Magistrate Court which dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction.
However, he said the Police re-arrested the journalist immediately after he stepped out of the courtroom and charged him with publishing false news under section 208 of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), before granting him bail.
The GJA President said on March 30, 2023, the court remanded Mr Dameh for two weeks at the request of the prosecutor who said his surety had failed to produce him in court on three previous occasions, meanwhile, the journalist had received no notification regarding the said previous sittings.
The journalist was released on bail on April 7, 2023, after spending a week in detention.
Mr Dwumfour said this obvious “persecution” of Mr Dameh was but one of many crucial and disturbing issues relating to press freedom and safety of journalists in Ghana which needed to be addressed.
He said since the beginning of 2022, a number of journalists and one civil society activist had been prosecuted in Ghana using the Electronic Communications Act and the Criminal Code, specifically Section 208 of the Criminal and Other Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29).
“It may be argued that the arrests and persecutions have been in accordance with the law. It is equally true that the victims of the ex-while criminal libel law were also dealt with in line with the law. Indeed, many of the world’s intolerant and autocratic governments typically deal with dissent and press offenses by exploiting the law, hence our call for a repeal of the two laws.”
The GJA President said such incidences were the cause of Ghana losing its position as the country with the freest media environment in Africa in 2018 to 13th in the 2022 global press freedom ranking by Reporters without Borders.
On the global stage, Ghana also dropped from 30th position in 2021 to 60th in 2022, the worst ranking in 20 years.
He said the violations that had been recorded in Ghana over the past year gave cause for pessimism regarding the country’s performance in the next ranking.
Mr Dwumfour said as key stakeholders in the media sector, the GJA, MFWA, GIBA, PRINPAG and GCRN were equally concerned about the use of the Electronic Communications Act and the Criminal and Other Offences Act to arrest citizens and journalists and prefer criminal charges against them for press and speech offences which were merely defamatory and for which civil remedies were available.
He said they also found it ironic that a Government presided by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who was much vaunted as a human rights and press freedom champion, was “supervising the surreptitious reintroduction of criminal libel through the use of the above-mentioned criminal laws.”
“Indeed, the repression of freedom of expression using the law on false publication likely to cause fear and panic undercuts the publicly expressed view of President Akufo-Addo.
Speaking on the topic ‘Outlawing Criminal Libel Laws’ during a conference at the University of Pretoria in August 2011, Nana Akufo-Addo lamented that such laws are susceptible to broad and abusive interpretation.”
“In the face of the increasing use of this law to target critical journalists under President Akufo-Addo’s regime, we may well ask the question “What has changed?,” he said.
The GJA President said the media and journalists can sometimes be reckless and unprofessional to the extent of publishing false and defamatory stories but fortunately, the Ghana’s laws provided aggrieved entities with remedies for civil actions against citizens, journalists and media organisations.
He called on Government to adequately resource the National Media Commission to effectively carry out its mandate of monitoring and regulating media content in a proactive manner, adding that, such steps would discourage Police involvement in the media regulatory space.
Mr Dwumfour said the GJA and other stakeholders in the media industry were committed to promoting professional standards in the media and urged all journalists and media houses to uphold the highest level of integrity and professionalism.
GNA