The Students Representative Council of the Ghana School of Law have called on the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to investigate the actions taken by the Greater Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Frederick Adu Anim and his officers during their demonstrations last week.
According to them, the call on CHRAJ is in accordance with Article 218 of the national constitution which gives room for the commission to investigate complaints of ‘violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, injustice, corruption, abuse of power and unfair treatment of a person by a public officer in the exercise of official duties’.
In a statement sighted by GhanaWeb signed by the SRC President, Jonathan Alua, it said “we are by this petition, making a formal complaint to CHRAJ that The Greater Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Frederick Adu Anim and his officers infringed on the rights of law students to freely assemble and take part in processions and demonstrations—a right conferred on us by Article 21(1)(d) of the 1992 Constitution—when they sought to prevent and indeed prevented us from embarking and completing our demonstration on Monday, October 7, 2019 despite our compliance with the requirements of the Public Order Act 1994 (Act 491)”.
The Greater Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Frederick Adu Anim and his officers, according to the statement denied students of their rights by violently arresting about 13 students and detaining them for over 6 hours without formal charges.
On October 7, 2019, some of the students who embarked on the demonstration were reported to have sustained various degrees of injury from rubber bullets fired by the police.
The statement further noted that these affected persons were ‘rushed to the hospital for immediate medical treatment’, adding that, ‘the use of tear gas by the police also triggered one female student’s asthmatic attack’.
However, the Deputy Public Relations Officer of the Greater Accra Regional Police Command, Inspector Kwabena Danso in an interview on CitiFM refuted claims of brutalising the students, noting that, the actions of the students rather triggered the police to act on that ‘standard procedure’.
He said “they (students) made their intention to go to the Flagstaff House and we decided to stop them. It was not easy so we decided to disperse them based on that conduct. We have charged the arrested persons with breach to peace and unlawful demonstration and they are under investigations.”
Read below the full statement
SRC president of Ghana Law School, Jonathan Alua