Accra, Sept. 21, GNA – Twenty-four out of about 100 people participating in a demonstration organised by the Coalition on US/NATO Hands-Off Libya, in Accra on Wednesday have been arrested and detained in Police custody.

The demonstration began at about 1050 hours from Obra Spot at Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra towards the United States of America Embassy at Cantonments, to register their displeasure at the bombing of Libya by Western allied forces.

However, when the demonstrators reached a junction near Ghana Broadcasting Corporation at Kanda, a team of Police personnel from the Greater Accra Regional Police Command met them and showed a Prohibition Order from an Accra Circuit Court prohibiting the demonstration and asked them to stop.

The demonstrators refused to acknowledge and obey the court’s order and started heckling the Police, while some of them continued demonstrating, a situation which made the police to call for reinforcement leading to the arrest of the 24.

Those arrested were immediately brought to the Greater Accra Regional Police Headquarters to a meeting with the Greater Accra Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), Rose Bio Atinga, who instructed that the demonstrators should be processed for court on Thursday, September 22.

DCOP Bio Atinga told Ghana News Agency that those arrested would be charged with “unlawful assembly”, and “acts that tend to disrupt the peace of the nation”.

She said the Greater Accra Regional Police Command met leaders of the Coalition and explained to them that there were many activities in Accra on Thursday, September 21 including the Milo Marathon and asked them to reschedule the demonstration but they refused.

DCOP Bio Atinga said in view of their refusal, the Police went to court to secure an injunction to prohibit the demonstration, a copy of which was made available to the GNA.

The order, dated September 16, was secured from the Circuit Court of Justice, Accra signed by Mrs Patience Mills Tetteh, Circuit Judge, and it read: “The organisation calling itself US/NATO Hands Off Libya and Hands Off Africa Coalition are hereby prohibited from demonstrating on September 21.”

“It is further ordered that the intended demonstration could come on at a later date when police have been notified.”

DCOP Bio Atinga said based upon the order, she instructed personnel at the Cantonments Police Station to be on alert and watch-over the American Embassy to arrest any demonstrator who would be picketing around.

Mr Sekou Mwanza Nkrumah, Leader of the demonstrators, who was also arrested told GNA shortly before he was detained that the action of the Police showed how much influence the United States of America had over the Government in Ghana.

He expressed shock at the arrest questioning whether individual Ghanaians did not have rights and liberties to express their views anymore.