Prof. Opoku-Agyemang condemns high-handed treatment of protestors
The running mate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has expressed deep concern over the high-handed treatment meted out to peaceful protestors of the recent three-day demonstration in Accra.
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She said the reports of manhandling, arrests, starvation, denial of access to family and legal counsel by the police, as well as the subsequent remand of the protestors, including a pregnant lady by an Accra Circuit Court were alarming.
“That the response of the authorities is brutal and high-handed raises questions about the government’s commitment to its so-called fight against illegal mining and the destruction of Ghana’s waterbodies, forest and farmlands,” the running mate for the NDC said.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said she expected the authorities to re-direct their clampdown on the protestors toward a genuine fight against illegal mining and its harmful effects on waterbodies, the health of the people, destruction of cocoa farms and the implications for food security.
“It is incongruous that those actively behind illegal mining are freely walking about and smiling to the bank, while protestors who are concerned about the harmful impact of illegal mining are rather being suppressed,” she said.
Stop suppressing
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang urged the government to desist from suppressing the right of Ghanaians to protest, especially as protests were fundamental to human rights.
“These feudal, authoritarian and early-century reactions by the government to a peaceful protest have no place in a 21st-century democracy,” she averred.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang stressed the need for the government to immediately end the persecution of the protestors and unconditionally release those in custody.
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“The government should be taking a cue from the NDC’s pledge to properly train illegal miners and give them expert mining advisory services, including attaching mining engineers to their operations to ensure that they mine responsibly and without adverse impact on waterbodies, forest reserve and the environment,” Prof. Opoku-Agyemang added.