Accra, Ghana//-Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Ghana have asked the Akufo-Addo led government to stop reducing abolished criminal libel regime to harass and intimidate media practitioners and other critical voices in the country.
Series of arrests
Just recently, radio and TV presenter Captain Smart was dragged from court, and although he had been granted bail. Another radio presenter, Oheneba Boamah Bennie has been incarcerated for statements he allegedly made.
News broke this morning that the #FixtheCountry Movement convener, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, was arrested by operatives from the National Security at the Kotoka International International Airport (KIA) around 4 pm [on Friday], and around 5.20 pm.
According to the police, he was arrested over a social media post on Facebook announcing a plot to stage a coup should the controversial Electronic Transfer Levy (E-levy) be passed.
The police statement which confirmed the arrest said: “The post contained a clear statement of intent with a possible will to execute a coup in his declaration of intent to subvert the constitution of the Republic”.
Mr Barker-Vormawor will be put before court on Monday, February 14, 2022.
Another civil society activist, Mensah Thompson was arrested, detained, sent to court on criminal charges, granted bail and yet detained again for making a statement against President Akufo-Addo.
Mr Thompson who is the Executive Director of the Alliance For Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA), is being prosecuted on a charge of publication of false news for making 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 is noteworthy that, following discussions with the Ghana Armed Forces and in apparent anticipation of an official refutation of the allegation, Mr Thompson publicly retracted the allegation and apologized to the Ghana Armed Forces on or about January 9, 2022”, according to a statement issued by the CSOs comprising Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), IMANI Africa and Africa Center for International Law & Accountability (ACILA).
His original post 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.
…deeply troubled by the growing use of the prosecutorial
“We are deeply troubled by the growing use of the prosecutorial and judicial power of the State to punish criminally speech that allegedly falsely injures or damages the reputation of other persons or of an institution of state”, the CSOs said.
Criminal libel law in the 1990s
Instructively, during the heyday of the criminal libel law in the 1990s, the criminal law was used in precisely the way it is now being used: to prosecute and punish journalists and public speakers for allegedly false or defamatory statements against certain family members or associates of the President.
“Our legal system provides noncriminal or civil avenues for dealing with uses of free speech that injure or infringe on the rights of others.
The abolition of criminal libel in the aftermath of the Rawlings regime in 2001, a move popularly 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”.
Moreover, the law provides offending parties the prospect of avoiding even civil liability by retracting the offending publication and rendering appropriate apology to the injured or offended party.
As a tool for regulating speech, the criminal law is fraught with the danger of politicization and selective prosecution, as it leaves it to a party-aligned attorney-general, an appointee who serves 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.
A return to the use of criminal law enforcement
A return to the use of criminal law enforcement and prosecution to regulate and punish speech would take us back to a bygone authoritarian era where journalists and other public speakers were jailed for politically disagreeable libel, the CSOs noted.
They therefore implored 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 CSOs also urged media practitioners and users to tone down the inflammatory rhetoric that had contaminated the public square and airwaves, desist from knowingly or recklessly making or publishing false statements.
They further advised media practitioners and other critical voices to use the Right to Information Act and its processes to access information from public authorities.
African Eye Report
