Political prisoners must be treated with respect

Accra, July 8, GNA - Mr Ebenezer Atta Bediako, a former District Treasurer of the Progress Party (PP), on Tuesday said political prisoners should be treated with respect and not be put in the same cell with other criminals.

Giving evidence at the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), Mr Bediako, who was arrested after the overthrow of Dr. Abrefa Busia, said about 15 former members of the PP were arrested because they were to be put in protective custody.

However, they were locked up in the condemned cells with other criminals where the lights were on them almost all the time. Mr Bediako, who was a storekeeper at the time and resident at Somanya in the Eastern Region, said his three months experience in prison had made him partially blind, adding that he could only see when the object was very close to him.

He said during his detention, soldiers sold the goods worth about 400 pounds in his store and took the money.

He said the building plan that he used as collateral for a loan he took at the Ghana Commercial Bank was seized by the bank. Witness, now resident at Kasoa and unemployed, said he could not educate his six children to the level he desired because of his arrest and detention.

He said he and the 14 other members of the Party first spent seven days at the Somanya Police Station after which they were taken to the Akuse Prisons where they were released after a week.

Mr Bediako said two weeks later they were arrested again and sent to the Nsawam Prisons where they spent almost three months. He said they were not maltreated but they were made to sleep on the floor and fed with "bad food".

Another witness, Madam Afua Gyesiwa, formerly a baker and resident of Nungua in Accra, told the NRC that she was hit by a bullet at the Tema Fishing Harbour on June 6, 1979 when she went to collect money from a debtor.

She said she had to be rushed to the Korle-bu Teaching Hospital for surgery.

Madam Gyesiwa said she fell unconscious a few minutes after the gunshot and only regained consciousness three days later. Witness said the gun was shot by some Naval Ratings who were then at the gate of the harbour, adding that she felt the bullet grazed the left side of her lower abdomen and came out through the left side. An inspection of the scars by the Commission showed the scars of the bullet wounds and another four-inch scar from under her chest to her navel where the surgery was performed.

Madam Gyesiwa said she became unemployed after the incident since the doctor advised her not to go near hot fire and she had to stop baking.

The witness said the pain of what she went through made her develop blood pressure and she has not been fit since. She said her three children whose father died about two years before the incident did not receive good education because her work, through which she catered for them, came to an abrupt end.

Madam Gyesiwa said though two personnel from the Navy visited her at the hospital, meaning they had accepted responsibility, her numerous petitions for financial assistance, especially for her medical bills yielded no response.

She said she paid all the medicals bills herself and had no compensation.

Madam Gyesiwa pleaded with the NRC to help find gainful employment for her three unemployed children, aged between 31 and 35 years as a form of compensation.