Gbevlo Boys Arrest Journalists

Posted: Daily Guide |Thursday, 25 March 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The dark days of the Jerry Rawlings-led Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC 1) era are here again.

This became evident when agents of the National Security detained three journalists who were going about their normal duties yesterday.

The journalists, Moses Kangah of Joy FM, Prince Menkah of Citi FM and Dennis Boateng of the Daily Searchlight newspaper together with this reporter, had gone to the forecourt of the office of the National Security to cover a supposed demonstration by some of its workers who were dismissed without reason.

Just as the journalists started interviewing the leaders of the group on the car park in front of the famous ‘Blue Gate’, some agents of the National Security who were in plain clothes took their recording devices from them and dragged them into the yard.

In the heat of heckling, one of the agents took the Citi FM reporter’s mobile phone.

They then took the three reporters into the yard where they held them for close to an hour, asking them a series of questions as to what they had come there to do.

The journalists, who narrated their ordeal to this reporter who was equally a victim of the National Security agents’ heckling, indicated that they were interrogated by one Major and Gerald Forson, brother to ace broadcaster, Tommy Annan Forson, who works at the National Security.

After demanding to see their press cards, Gerald was particularly said to have asked the reporters a series of thought-provoking questions including whether their rights as journalists extended to the office of the National Security.

He was said to have also asked them whether they did not know that the area was a security zone and for that matter they could not extend their activities and operations there.

But as and when one of them tried to answer the question with an explanation that as journalists they owe it a duty to report happenings and events to the Ghanaian populace, he narrated that the supposed Major threatened to beat him and his colleagues if they dared challenge his authority.

All this while, the ex-National Security agents who had gone there to meet the Coordinator, Lt. Col. Larry Gbevlo Lartey (Rtd), over their concerns were protesting outside the gate because they were being prevented from going in to meet the administrator of the National Security Secretariat as directed by the Deputy Coordinator.

“Don’t push me; you say you will slap me, slap me and see, I will also slap you. We are prepared to die here today so kill us,” screamed one vociferous woman who was among the group.

Spokesperson for the group, Samuel Ansah had this to say: “They should prepare, they should start wearing gloves because they are going to beat us more because we are not going to lie low.

This intimidation is done to children under the age of five, not me who is 47years and had joined army and seen battle before.

This thing is kidding, man. It is something small to me. They should prepare to slaughter me because I will prefer to die than to be a slave in my own country.”

At the same time, other agents of the National Security were heckling this reporter outside the yard.

One of them hit his recorder into a gutter after which he attempted to snatch it from him because he was recording the heated verbal exchanges between the ex-National Security agents and some police officers.

After almost an hour of military interrogation, amidst threats to teach them a lesson, the journalists were asked to go but without Prince’s phone.

This was when one of their kind informed them that the issue about the journalists’ detention was being broadcast by some radio stations.

At this point, they had no option but to set the journalists free but with a note of caution not to see them anywhere near the office when they exit the main gate.

Later, when they were asked to go, the Major was said to have further warned the journalists that if they happened to be picked by their cameras, they would be arrested and flogged.

Meanwhile, the ex-National Security agents have served notice of their intention to take whatever action they deem prudent to get their gratuity since, according to them, they cannot be asked to go home without any form of severance payment.

Most of them who happen to be ex-soldiers have thus threatened to go to any length including putting their lives on line to safeguard their own security.