According to Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, the government is responsible for the country's ongoing decline in journalistic freedom.
He claims that the administration has disregarded stakeholder requests to increase media freedom in the nation.
"The issue is that our administration appears to be engaging in some self-denial; when a truth is presented, it is disputed, and one can cite several examples of this."
"So we kept warning and ringing the alarm bells that, look, press freedom conditions are getting worse, and this was way back in 2019 that we need to begin to do something about our press freedom conditions," he stated on Saturday.
He noted on JoyNews' Newsfile that by limiting the press's rights and freedoms to a discussion, the government has made the situation for the media much worse.
The president himself has now decided to reduce the entire problem to a fight about whether or not journalists may critique. "We were repeatedly informed that is not the case, to the point where the president himself has decided to do so."
He claims that the reason we are so upset about press freedom is because "journalists do not want to be critiqued because they view criticism as an attack."
It progressed to the point where political appointees and party officials would use the comment and claim that the media believed they couldn't be critiqued, and when they were, they claimed the criticism was personal.
He described a specific incident, saying, "In early 2020, the Bobie Ansah and a few others had happened, and again we started ringing the alarm bell. One of the president's media advisers, Madam Elizabeth Ohene, wrote an article directly criticizing the MFWA and charging that we were biased against the administration.
"The issue essentially revolves around an administration that is unwilling to acknowledge the truth before dealing with it," he added.
According to a survey by Reporters Without Borders, Ghana has slipped from 60th to 62nd overall and 10th in Africa.
After placing 66th and 67th in 2005 and 2002, respectively, this is Ghana's lowest position in over two decades.
Ghana's indicative points decreased from 78.67 percent to 67.43 percent in the most recent assessment, which evaluated 180 nations.
The US Department of State just published its 2021 annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which provides information on important human rights concerns in several nations, including Ghana.
The study singled out Ghana for several violations of human rights, including its crackdown on free expression.
blogpay
Total Comments: 0