(MFWA/IFEX) – On 28 February 2007, fans of Ashantigold Sporting Club, a soccer club in Obuasi, a mining town in the Ashanti Region of Ghana, attacked journalists after a league game in which the club lost to Hearts of Oak, an Accra-based team. One journalist, Buertey Shadai, a photographer for “Hearts News” bi-weekly newspaper, sustained […]
(MFWA/IFEX) – On 28 February 2007, fans of Ashantigold Sporting Club, a soccer club in Obuasi, a mining town in the Ashanti Region of Ghana, attacked journalists after a league game in which the club lost to Hearts of Oak, an Accra-based team.
One journalist, Buertey Shadai, a photographer for “Hearts News” bi-weekly newspaper, sustained deep wounds on his forehead and a swollen head after he was pelted with stones.
The irate fans, who were disappointed with a late goal scored by their opponents, also smashed the journalist’s camera, then seized it.
Shadai told a MFWA correspondent that he was ordered by some fans of the club to surrender his camera, claiming that he had photographed some “nasty incidents”.
“They hit me with stones, smashed the camera and took it away”, he alleged.
According to Delali Atiase, a correspondent of JOY FM, an Accra-based independent radio station, another journalist was also injured in the head by stones thrown by the fans.
He told MFWA that, following the attacks, other journalists felt threatened and disguised themselves to avoid being targeted.
MFWA learned that it took the intervention of a combined military personnel and soldiers for calm to be restored.
