Private legal practitioner, Kwame Jantuah, has strongly condemned the attack of an eyewitness and the arrest of journalist of Multimedia Group Ltd by military officers during a live report on the McDan warehouse demolition exercise.

He described the act as senseless, unjustifiable, and a violation of the right of the eyewitness and the journalist.

Speaking on TV3’s New Day on Friday, August 1, Jantuah questioned the reasoning behind such acts of aggression by security officers, particularly against journalists who were only carrying out their professional duty.

“I don’t understand why somebody from the security service will carry a belt, to whip people – even if he’s not a journalist,” he said.

According to him, the duty of security officers is to enforce the law and protect citizens, not to inflict harm on them.

“It does not make sense to me. Yours is to protect the law, and in protecting the law, you’ve got to protect the citizen,” he explained.

Jantuah further asked what provocation warranted such a violent act against the eyewitness and journalist.

“What did the journalist do wrong? Was there a provocation? Did the journalist provoke anybody there? What tool did the journalist have? Camera, recorder. It is their tools of work,” he said.

He argued that no one, not even a member of the security services, has the right to assault another person.

“If I get up right now and say, you said something and I slap you, would it be right? It’s not. Nobody has the right to assault anybody. Nobody, not even a soldier or a policeman,” he stated.

He insisted that if a citizen is breaking the law, the appropriate response is a lawful arrest not violence.

“If the citizen is being unruly and doing things that are untoward, yours is to arrest,” he said.

He went on to question the culture of military and police violence, warning that such actions could constitute grievous bodily harm, which is punishable by law.

“Even if I’ve done something wrong, you don’t have the right to whip me. It’s not in your place to whip me,” he said.

“They have to use justifiable force in appropriate circumstances to contain the situation – yes – justifiable force,” he added.

Jantuah noted that by stressing that journalists have a duty to report, and security forces must understand and respect that role rather than intimidate them through violence.

AS/VPO

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