On Day 1 of the protests, held on September 21, 2023, the police apprehended 49 protesters who had taken to the streets to demand action on the prevailing economic crisis and allegations of corruption within the government.
The illegal arrests, along with the manner in which they were carried out, triggered widespread criticism, with many arguing that the actions of the police were heavy-handed and infringed upon citizens' constitutional rights to assemble and freely express their grievances.
Stonebwoy shared his thoughts on the matter via a tweet. 0
"Whether you support the arrested protesters or not, you cannot deny that they have the constitutional right to assemble and freely express their grievances. Dissent, after all, is the hallmark of every democracy. Our right to enjoy the freedoms our constitution has bestowed on us should not be unjustly curtailed, especially not by the institutions of state-mandated to uphold the law!"
He concluded his statement by invoking the words of Ghana's first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, saying, "We shall not rest until Africa is free and united under the leadership of the African people, we have awakened, we will not sleep anymore."
Stonebwoy's condemnation of the police's actions comes as part of the broader criticism that the illegal arrests have drawn for impeding the constitutional right to protest and suppressing freedom of expression.
Background
On Day 1 (September 21) of the #OccupyJulorbiHouse protests by the Democracy Hub, a group of young activists; police illegally rounded up 49 protesters who were marching to demand action on prevailing economic crisis and corruption.
The illegal arrests, especially how they were conducted by the police triggered harsh criticism of impeding the constitutional right to protest and deploying highhandedness on the part of police.
Police sent the detainees to the regional headquarters before splitting them up to about eight police stations dotted across the capital, even as colleague protesters and lawyers worked to secure bail for the illegally detained persons.
In this process, other journalists and protesters who massed up, especially at the Accra Regional Command encountered some amount of police violence including shoving, forced detention, seizure of phones, and in the case of other physical assault.
In their first of two statements on the day, police said the illegal arrests were justified because protesters were defying a court injunction served on them, which process they denied had been properly served.
The second statement addressed the purported arrest of a BBC journalist and his cameraman, which reportage they dismissed as untrue.
By the close of the day, almost all illegally detained protesters per GhanaWeb checks had been released from illegal detention on bail, it remains to be seen whether Day Two of the three-day protest targeting the seat of government, the Jubilee House, will come off today (September 22, 2023).
AM/SARA
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Stonebwoy, Musician