Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, the Member of Parliament for South Dayi has hit out at the state-owned Daily Graphic newspaper for publishing an advertorial for the coalition against the anti-LGBTQ+ bill.
In the October, 18, 2021, issue of the newspaper, eight pages were reserved as an advertorial for the memo by the group which explains their opposition to the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, calling for its dismissal and promoting LGBTQ+ rights in the country.
Taking to his social media handle, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor said that for a newspaper owned by the state, it should have a position against such things.
According to him, the publication could expose Ghanaian children to homosexuality and also indoctrinate them about the practice.
He criticized the board and editors of the news firm for not upholding the position of the proponents of the anti-LGBTQ+ bill.
“Our dear Daily Graphic has today published an 8-page advertorial of the pro-gay Memo. Certainly, our kids will read it in school & get reoriented towards Gayism. This is a criminal assault on the conscience of the Nation. The Editor & the Board of Daily Graphic must be ashamed,” he said. Background
Parliament is expected to discuss a Private Member's Bill submitted by some eight MPs. The 38-page bill among other things stipulates that people of the same sex who engage in sexual intercourse are “liable on summary conviction, to a fine of not less than seven hundred and fifty penalty units and not more than five thousand penalty units, or to a term of imprisonment of not less than three years and not more than five years or both.”
The Bill targets persons who “hold out as a lesbian, a gay, a transgender, a transsexual, a queer, a pansexual, an ally, a non-binary or any other sexual or gender identity that is contrary to the binary categories of male and female.”
The Bill also targets promoters and advocates of LGBTQ+ rights including “a person who, by use of media, technological platform, technological account or any other means, produces, procures, markets, broadcasts, disseminates, publishes or distributes a material for purposes of promoting an activity prohibited under the Bill, or a person uses an electronic device, the Internet service, a film, or any other device capable of electronic storage or transmission to produce, procure, market, broadcast, disseminate, publish or distribute a material for purposes of promoting an activity prohibited under the Bill,” as well as a person who, “promotes, supports sympathy for or a change of public opinion towards an act prohibited under the Bill.”
As part of its provisions, the Bill outlines that a flouter can be sentenced to a jail term of not less than six years or not more than ten years. At the back of the public support the Bill has received, a group of academicians and other professionals have expressed their opposition to the bill.
According to the group of 18, the bill, ‘Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values’, when passed into law, would erode a raft of fundamental human rights, enshrined in the 1992 Constitution.
Members of the group opposing the anti-gay bill include Mr Akoto Ampaw; author, scholar and former Director of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, Prof. Emerita Takyiwaa Manuh; a communications and media expert, Prof. Kwame Karikari; the Dean of the University of Ghana (Legon) School of Law, Prof. Raymond Atuguba, and the former Dean of the University of Ghana School of Information and Communication Studies, Prof. Audrey Gadzekpo.
The Director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Professor Dzodzi Tsikata; the Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh, and a former Executive Director of CDD-Ghana, Prof. Kofi Gyimah-Boadi, are also members of the group. The remaining members are Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin, Dr Yao Graham, Mr Kwasi Adu Amankwah, Dr Kojo Asante, Mr Kingsley Ofei-Nkansah, Mr Akunu Dake, Mr Tetteh Hormeku-Ajie, Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby, Dr Joseph Asunka and Nana Ama Agyemang Asante.
Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, the Member of Parliament for South Dayi