GJA condemns death threats on journalists

The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) on Thursday condemned recent attacks and threats on Journalists for exercising their fundamental and constitutional rights. "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. This right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers," Mrs Gifty Affenyi-Dadzie, GJA President, said in Accra.

"We, therefore, call on the Minister responsible for the Interior and the Inspector General of Police to investigate such threats against the media whenever possible, and to apprehend people who attempt to engage in them", she told a press conference to state GJA's stand on recent threats on some Journalist and other people in the country.

Mrs Affenyi-Dadzie expressed the Association's worry about the intolerable development on freedom of expression that had engulfed the body politic of the nation. She said the Association had received formal complaints from its members on treats to their life.

Mrs Affenyi-Dadzie referred to a story in the "Insight" of Wednesday, 23 April which said a man allegedly went to the office of "The Ghana Palaver" with the intention of "dealing" with the Editor of the paper, who he accused of "writing nonsense".

She said that that threat was not the first adding that three major ones had been received either verbally or in writing against Kwaku Baako Jnr, Managing Editor of the Crusading Guide; Mrs Margaret Amoakohene, a Lecturer at the University of Ghana; "Baby Ansaba" of the Daily Guide and General Emmanuel Erskine, Member of the National Reconciliation Commission.

Mrs Affenyi-Dadzie said the GJA had in the recent past issued statements condemning "such barbaric and infantile behaviour" of people, it said, were enemies of democracy, particularly of free expression and press freedom." The GJA President said freedom of expression as entrenched in the Constitution was not just for Journalists, but also for all Ghanaians.

Therefore, any threat to such freedom was a threat to the liberal democracy, which Ghanaians were currently enjoying. She, therefore, appealed to all Ghanaians, particularly lovers of peace and democracy to take the recent threat of violence against the media seriously and to impress upon people they know to have such ideas and intentions to abandon them.

She said the GJA was committed to accountability and responsible use of the media and would continue to encourage Journalists to be sensitive to the rights of others and respect its Code of Ethics. Journalists, she said, would be encouraged to give the necessary respect to mechanisms, both constitutional and institutional, that had been set up to promote seeking of redress and tolerance in the exercise of free expression and press freedom.

Mrs Affenyi-Dadzie said people should be encouraged to resolve conflicts that arise from the exercise of free expression and press freedom at the law courts, which has sufficient lawful means of dealing with such matters for aggrieved people.

The GJA said it believed that what had occasioned the threat against Journalists was the same factor largely accounting for exacerbating the conflict in the Dagbon area. "Intolerance of differences of opinion continues to make the resolution of the Dagbon issues more difficult."

The Association, therefore, appealed to the national leadership of political parties to prevail on their functionaries and supporters to appreciate the importance of tolerance in the consolidation of Ghana's fledgling democracy.

It also appealed to media practitioners to be circumspect in their coverage of the Dagbon crises, taking into account the guiding principles for coverage of conflict in a State of Emergency. "Journalists unite and stand by the tenets of the profession and work together in an atmosphere that would make people appreciate freedom of expression," she said.

Meanwhile, the GJA President said the Association had distanced itself from the current media debate between two of its members, Kwesi Pratt Jnr, Managing Editor of the Insight and Kwaku Baako Jnr because "we see the issues as purely political that existed beyond journalistic grounds".