(MFWA/IFEX) – Lawrence Addo Kyeremeh, a reporter for independent local radio station Happy FM, was violently attacked and detained on 26 September 2006 by five police officers at the police station in Kaneshie, a suburb of the capital, Accra. According to Kyeremeh, while two of the officers slapped him several times, two others insulted him. […]
(MFWA/IFEX) – Lawrence Addo Kyeremeh, a reporter for independent local radio station Happy FM, was violently attacked and detained on 26 September 2006 by five police officers at the police station in Kaneshie, a suburb of the capital, Accra.
According to Kyeremeh, while two of the officers slapped him several times, two others insulted him. The fifth officer hit Kyeremeh’s head against a wall three times.
Kyeremeh told MFWA that he was on his way home around 9:00 p.m. (local time), when he heard several gunshots and saw a large crowd rushing towards the police station.
The journalist said he followed the crowd to the station, and saw a man alleged to have stolen oranges from the Kaneshie market in the grip of the police.
He said a police officer ordered people to move away while Kyeremeh identified himself as a reporter from Happy FM and requested information on the incident. He said the officer told him, “You are a journalist and so what? My friend, get down.” The officer then pushed him off the veranda.
Kyeremeh told MFWA, “When I protested about his behaviour, he slapped me three times. Another officer also slapped me twice after his colleague [the first assailant] told him, ‘this stupid boy [Kyeremeh] who calls himself a journalist says he is not afraid of a policeman’.”
Kyeremeh also told MFWA that the two officers dragged him, one holding his shirt and neck, another his trousers, and hauled him to the booking room. “I was detained for about an hour without charge. As if that was not enough, the officer behind the station’s counter also hit my head against the wall three times, and insulted me and the journalism profession,” he added.
In the process, Kyeremeh said, he lost his cellular phone, digital voice recorder, two prepaid telephone cards and 200,000 Cedis (approx, US$20) in cash.
Kyeremeh said he was treated at the Kaneshie Polyclinic and discharged.
Barely a week before, on 21 September, the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) threatened legal action against persons or groups of persons who physically attack journalists in the course of discharging their legitimate duties (see IFEX alert of 25 September 2006).
The MFWA is dismayed at the ever-increasing number of incidents of harassment and intimidation of journalists. At least 10 incidents of such actions against journalists since the beginning of the year have come to the attention of MFWA (see alerts of 21 and 14 September, 25, 18 and 3 August, and 19 July 2006 and others).
