The abuse of many Journalists in Ghana is becoming the norm every year. Journalists are usually beaten, killed, sometimes arrested and get their asset seized while on duty.

Many Journalists have spoken against these abuses especially by the security personnel but government seems to pay deaf ears to their plea.

In the latest of such abuses, the Editors of Modern Ghana news website were alleged to have been tortured by officers of National Security for a critical story they did. Following this abuse, the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa Suleiman Braimah has said the government must be clear on its position about the abuses against journalists in the country.

The Director explained that if the government remains silent on the abuse of journalists, it will tarnish the image of the country globally in terms of its ranking on press freedom.

“The Government of the day has a responsibility to demonstrate clearly that abuses on Journalists wouldn’t be something that is tolerated. So if you have state agencies like National Security being the ones abusing the rights of Journalists and abusing media organizations then you wonder where else can you find a solution,” he told Accra based Citi FM.

He said the actions of the Nation Security Agency send a wrong signal about the status of the country and its reputation.

He urged the Government to sit-up and take such reports more seriously in order to protect the image of the country.

Research on the abuse of journalists from 2017 -2019 in Ghana

In the past 20 months, about 17 cases of assaults on Journalists have been recorded by Anas Seidu. He said a total of 26 Journalists were physically or verbally attacked and on a more devastating note one shot dead.

A few 2019 cases

On Wednesday, January 16, 2019, Ahmed Hussein Suale, a member of the Tiger Eye PI investigative team led by Anas Aremeyaw Anas, was shot and killed by unknown gunmen.

The incident has attracted local, regional and international attention and condemnation. All actors including the UN have called on the Ghanaian authorities to promptly and thoroughly investigate the matter to bring the perpetrators to book.

Also on Friday, 15 March 2019, The founder and leader of the Glorious Word and Power Ministry, Rev. Isaac Owusu Bempah, stormed the premises of Radio XYZ at Adjiringano, East Legon, in the company of gun-wielding macho men with the intention to attack political talk show host Salifu Maase alias Mugabe.

A few 2018 cases

On March 27, 2018, one of Ghana’s budding and fearless journalists, Latif Idris, was brutally beaten at the headquarters of the Ghana Police Service.

The journalist, who works with the Multimedia group, was not beaten by thugs. He was beaten by police personnel, the same people he would have had to run to if he had been attacked by hoodlums.

His crime was for doing his job as a journalist by asking police officers a question at a time the officers had been deployed to maintain law and order by dispersing a supposedly rowdy crowd. Surprisingly, to the police, the approaches for maintaining law and order on that day included the resort to physical violence against a harmless journalist.

The vicious and shameful attack on Mr. Idris is not an isolated incident. It adds to a tall list of 11 other incidents of attacks involving a total of 16 other journalists in Ghana in the last 15 months alone. Sadly, security agencies and especially the police have played along, sometimes leading the attack on journalists.

Thus, the embarrassing attack on Mr. Idris and others is a manifestation of the deteriorating safety conditions for journalists in a country that has had a positive press freedom record over the years.

Prompted by concerns of a deteriorating press freedom environment in the country, the MFWA issued a statement in 2014 with a tall list of incidents of attacks and violations against journalists in the country.

At the time, the MFWA warned that the country’s press freedom ratings could drop if authorities and stakeholders failed to end the rampant attacks on journalists. A year later, Ghana’s press freedom ratings dropped from being “Free” to “Partly Free”.

A few 2017

For purposes of evidence, below are eleven other incidents of attacks on journalists from January 2017 to March 2018:

February 27, 2017 –  A photojournalist of the Asante Kotoko Expressnewspaper, Gideon Botchway was subjected to physical abuse by a fan and a steward of Ashgold football club in Obuasi during a match between Ashgold and Asante Kotoko.

March 5, 2017–  Officials of Accra Great Olympics attacked a photojournalist, Senyuidzorm Adadevor, at the Accra Sports Stadium during the Accra Great Olympics-WAFA football match.

March 6, 2017 – Soldiers attacked a freelance journalist, Kendrick Ofei during Ghana’s 60th Independence Day celebration at the Independence Square in Accra.

June 27, 2017 –  A journalist, Isaac Nsiah Foster with Otec FM in Kumasi was attacked by workers at a construction site where he had gone to investigate complaints by local residents about the siting of a project meant for a fuel station

July 2, 2017 – A three-member crew from TV (Myepaul Sowah, Richmond Tanoh and Peter Asare were assaulted by some suspected land guards while investigating encroachment on a piece of public land at Teshie, Accra.

July 3:  Some supporters of Asante Kotoko football club attacked a photojournalist with Hearts News, a bi-weekly published by Accra Hearts of Oak Football Club during a ceremonial match between the two clubs. The hooligans also seized the camera of the victim, Daniel Anane Boakye-Yiadom and destroyed it.

October 10, 2017- The Omanhene of the Wassa Akropong, Tetre Akuamoah Sekyim II, forced Larry Saint, a journalist with Rivers FM, to kneel in the sun for hours for criticizing him on WhatsApp.

October 18, 2017 – A group of irate youth calling themselves Kumasi Youth Association (KuYA), attacked the regional office of the Daily Guide newspaper, in Kumasi Kumasi, over publications carried by the newspaper on Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.

Dec 2, 2017 – Thugs stormed the studio of Radio Justice, based in Tamale, and assaulted the presenter of a program and his three panelists, disrupting the live broadcast in the process. The attackers injured the presenter, Yunus Yiripha, and vandalized the console, microphones, computers and furniture.

December 21, 2017 –  Four journalists were physically attacked by some security officers manning the NPP party Headquarters in Accra. The four journalists from TV3, Citi FM, and Ghanaweb.com were brutalised by the security guards for covering a protest at the premises of the party headquarters

February 23, 2018 –  Christopher Kevin Asima, a presenter of A1 Radio in Bolgatanga, was attacked by police while he was covering a fire outbreak incident.

Sadly from all the incidents listed above and several others, no perpetrators have been punished. At best, the cases die with mere assurances of investigations by the police.