We condemn police brutalities against demonstrating law students - OccupyGhana

OccupyGhana has expressed their disgust at the brutal assault the Ghana Police meted out to unarmed and peacefully demonstrating law students and their sympathisers.

“We have seen footages and photographs that show several infractions against the rule of law and of humaneness on the part of the Police.

“This Police high-handedness and brutality against students exercising nothing more than their constitutional right to demonstrate and air out their grievances makes a mockery of the democracy we claim to respect, and we wish to unequivocally announce our disgust with that turn of events and to condemn same in no uncertain terms,” they said.

In a press statement issued to the Ghana News Agency they said they had closely studied the Police Statement on the matter which, to all intents and purposes, was a poor attempt to throw dust in the faces of Ghanaians concerning a true and accurate account of the day.

How does the Police Service explain how the protestors somehow procured arsenals of stones to hurl at Police officers on the Independence Road stretch between the Canadian Consulate to the Golden Jubilee House? The asked.

“How is it possible, in 2019, for the police to call an exercise of the constitutional right to assembly “illegal” when police permits are not required to stage a demonstration, and the notice requirement in the Public Order Act can never morph into an unconstitutional demand for some kind of police permission,” they questioned.

They reminded the Police that the right to demonstrate was an unchallengeable right that required absolutely no police approval or censure beyond notification and no ground in this country was so sacred that it could not tolerate the lawful exercise of unarmed students' rights to demonstrate.

They demanded, an apology from the recently-confirmed Inspector General of Police and that all Commanding Officers who directly supervised, sanctioned and called for these barbaric attacks on innocent protestors be punished in accordance with the law.

OccupyGhana prompted the Police Service, the General Legal Council and the Government of Ghana to be guided by the principles outlined in the Ghanaian Constitution that all power emanates from the people and not the other way round.