Kenneth Ashigbey, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, believes that if local state authorities appear to refuse to provide justice when journalists are assaulted or tortured, they will have to pursue recourse at the international level.
Given that many instances of journalist harassment and torture are not successfully investigated and the perpetrators are not punished, he believes that finding recourse, especially from the ECOWAS Court, may be a viable choice.
On Joy FM’s Newsfile on Saturday, Mr. Ashigbey shared these feelings when adding to a conversation about the assault of Citi FM’s Caleb Kudah by national security operatives.
“One of the aspects we should be aiming for is to move this dialogue away from only the civil suit and into the West African Court,” he added.
Mr. Ashigbey cited a case in which an ECOWAS court ruled against The Gambia, ordering it to pay $100,000 to two journalists and their families who were tortured during Yahya Jammeh’s government.
“We need to start elevating things so that if you have a case where, for example, Latif is attacked by a state agency, we need to start thinking that if it won’t be dealt with nationally, let’s move international,” he said.
Caleb Kudah of Citi FM was detained and assaulted by National Security agents last Tuesday after they discovered him recording discarded state-funded vehicles outside the station’s offices.
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Following that, the operatives surrounded Citi FM in order to apprehend another writer, Zoe Abu-Baidoo Addo, who had obtained the materials taken by Caleb.
The two have not been charged with anything.
Mr. Ashigbey said that Caleb Kudah’s detention for filming discarded state vehicles was unjustified since his actions were in the public interest.
According to him, the creation has many lessons for everybody, even journalists.
He also urged the government to address the rising number of cases of state security forces abusing journalists.
SOURCE: ATLFMONLINE
