Parliament meets 63 deportees next week

The Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament will be meeting the 63 Ghanaians who were deported from the United States of America two weeks ago, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Member of Parliament for North Tongue and Member of the Committee, has said.

According to him, this meeting is meant to offer a platform for the deportees to narrate their ordeal while on board the plane to Accra.

The deportees have claimed that they were maltreated and handcuffed on the flight to Accra. Some human rights activists condemned the US for keeping the deportees in shackles on the flight to Ghana. They also criticised US officials for treating the deportees in an inhumane manner.

The US Ambassador to Ghana Robert Porter Jackson was invited to Parliament on Thursday June 22 to explain circumstances that surrounded the deportation.

Mr Jackson accordingly honoured the invitation and denied that they were manhandled.

He said: “I flatly reject the idea that we treated people inhumanely. On the contrary, I think we treated them as best as possible given the fact that they refused to leave the United States voluntarily.”

But speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen on Friday June 23, Mr Ablakwa revealed that reports about maltreatment of the deportees were disturbing and so “we will have a meeting with the deportees to listen to their side of the story. We met the ambassador yesterday and he denied that they were maltreated.

“We will let every Ghanaian know exactly what happened after we are done with deliberations. We want the world to know that we will protect our citizens just as in every country the citizens are protected.”