(MFWA/IFEX) – Philip Katsriku, a cameraman of TV3 Network, an Accra-based independent television station, was on 29 March 2007 physically mistreated by a prison guard and sympathisers of a jailed opposition Member of Parliament for taking photographs of the MP. The prison guard, following his unsuccessful attempt to seize the journalist’s camera, pulled his shirt […]
(MFWA/IFEX) – Philip Katsriku, a cameraman of TV3 Network, an Accra-based independent television station, was on 29 March 2007 physically mistreated by a prison guard and sympathisers of a jailed opposition Member of Parliament for taking photographs of the MP.
The prison guard, following his unsuccessful attempt to seize the journalist’s camera, pulled his shirt and pinched his nose.
The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) correspondent reported that the incident occurred at the forecourt of the Supreme Court in Accra, where the MP is appealing a ten-year jail sentence handed down on him for causing financial loss to the state.
The correspondent said sympathizers of the MP, about 30 in number, held the journalist hostage briefly, demanding that he erase the pictures from his digital camera.
According to the Accra-based privately-owned newspaper “The Statesman”, who also reported the incident, it took the intervention of another opposition MP to rescue the journalist. Doe Adjaho, the MP, took the TV3 crew to his official car and drove them to safety.
