General News of Sunday, 24 December 2017
Source: classfmonline.com
2017-12-24
Affail Monney, President GJA
The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has condemned the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and urged its leaders to call members to order and cease physical attacks on journalists in the country.
“After carefully investigating the matter, the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) vehemently condemns the attack on the innocent journalists,” a statement from GJA General Secretary Kofi Yeboah stated on Sunday, December 24.
This follows an alleged assault on three journalists from various media houses by security personnel of the NPP at the party’s headquarters in Accra on Thursday, December 21.
The journalists went to cover a demonstration by NPP supporters from the Ellembelle Constituency in the Western region.
The demonstrators, who are polling station executives, were protesting against what they said was inaccessibility to registers to organise constituency elections in Ellembelle.
They wanted their polling station registers for updates but claim their Constituency Chairman, Mr Samuel Kainyah, is refusing to distribute the registers.
Some of the executives claim Mr Kainyah is acting on the orders of the Acting National Chairman Freddie Blay, thus their demonstration at the headquarters.
The GJA statement indicated that the attack left the journalists traumatised with one of the victims having blurred vision.
“Under no circumstances in our current democratic dispensation must a body, whether individual or corporate, shrug off the rule of law and employ brute to seek redress to a problem” the release added and stated further that: “The attack by the NPP security personnel was an attack on human dignity, which is guaranteed under Article 15 (1) of the 1992 Constitution as inviolable,” the statement noted.
The GJA leadership is therefore expecting a probe by the party and punishment to the culprits to prevent the occurrence of such “dastardly act”.
