The President of the Ghana Journalists Association, Affail Monney has called for an independent probe of the torture allegations against the National Security by the editor of news website Modern Ghana.
Speaking on Radio Ghana, Mr. Monney said the association was monitoring the progress of the case.
He added that “we believe that the time has come to move it to a new level by instituting an independent investigation into what happened to the two journalists.”
The association also has a team of lawyers “studying the situation” and Mr. Monney said they have requested for medical reports from the two journalists to possibly verify their claims.
“The lawyers are insisting that they will need the medical report which will serve as a basis for an action they intend to take,” the GJA president noted.
In the event that the torture claims are verified, Mr. Monney said: “we will push for the law [to take its course] because we are in the dispensation of rule of law and in such dispensations, no one is above the law.”
Emmanuel Ajarfor, the Modern Ghana editor, was detained alongside a fellow journalist, Emmanuel Yeboah Britwum.
The case has been surrounded by controversy after suggestions that the arrest of the two journalists was tied to the publication of an article that criticized the National Security Minister, Albert Kan Dapaah.
Mr. Ajarfor later claimed he was tortured and his digital privacy violated while in National Security custody.
The National Security Council Secretariat has denied the torture claims and also intends to study the medical reports.
The secretariat in a statement said Mr. Ajarfor, “was never manhandled, neither was he subjected to any form of forced physical contact.”
Source: citinewsroom.com