Takyi Boateng says he is shocked by the behaviour of the policemen who detained him at the station as he had produced his press card and sought permission from the court's registrar before he began photographing.
(MFWA/IFEX) – Takyi Boateng, a photojournalist with the state-owned “Daily Graphic” newspaper, was on April 29, 2011 arrested and detained briefly at a police station in Mampong-Akuapem, a town in eastern Ghana, for photographing a suspect being tried at the town’s magistrate court.
Before being taken to the police station, Boateng claims he was manhandled by two policemen after he photographed Seth Affum Danquah, a teacher at the Mampong-Akuapem Senior High Technical School for the Deaf, standing trial for allegedly taking nude pictures of three of his female students. Boateng was forced to delete the photographs from his camera.
Boateng told Media Foundation for West Africa’s (MFWA) correspondent that he was shocked by the behaviour of the policemen who detained him at the station and made him write a statement, as he had produced his press card and sought permission from the court’s registrar before he began photographing.
He said if it wasn’t for the intervention of the district commander, who knew him, he might have been kept at the station indefinitely since the policemen refused to recognise him as a photojournalist.
