Attacks on media condemnable; govt must learn to have a big heart – Ablakwa

Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has urged the Akufo Addo government to be more accomodative of criticism, and stop the harassment of journalists.

According to him, the state of media freedom in Ghana ever since the
New Patriotic Party (NPP) assumed power in 2017 has been terrible.

The country has lost its status as Africa’s best-ranked country in the World Press Freedom Index which is compiled annually by Reporters without Borders (RWB) which evaluates the state of journalism in 180 countries.

Ghana’s ranking on press freedom in Africa reduced to 3rd this year, from 1st last year. It also dropped four points in the latest ranking in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index, as it moved from the rank of 23 to 27 from the previous year.

Report shows that the murder of investigative journalist Ahmed Hussein Suale and other assaults on journalists had a major blow to the country’s press freedom.

The latest attack on Journalist is the arrest of journalists working with online news portal ModernGhana by operatives of National Security after they published an opinion piece about the Minister of National Security, Albert Kan Dapaah.

The said journalist have claimed that they were assaulted and tortured with electric shockers while in the custody of National Security.

Speaking on the development on with host Henry Lord on Ejura based Naagyei FM, Hon. Okudzeto Ablakwa condemned the attacks on the media and

“The way this government is treating the media is not fair at all, if you look at our rankings on the press freedom index you’ll see that we’ve declined as a country. Only last year we were number one in Africa but we’ve lost that spot now. The international community is watching, these attacks on the media is not doing any good to the image of Ghana. Government must learn to have a big heart and accommodate constructive criticism. The intolerance of the Akufo Addo administration is not the best. What was not said about ex-President Mahama when he was in power, but we never saw such attacks on the media.”