Veteran journalist, Raymond Archer has added his voice to the growing calls against the recent conduct of National Security operatives in the country.
The latest overreach of the operatives is from the alleged brutality meted out to a journalist with Accra-based radio station, Citi FM after he was caught taking photos within the precincts of the National Security office.
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Owing to this, Archer in a write-up sighted by GhanaWeb noted some concerns which should’ve been earlier addressed to have averted the incident in the first place.
He points that any institution with basic knowledge in protecting strategic national security installations will place a warning notice around its precincts and or inside its premises.
"Anyone with a basic training in protecting strategic national Security installations will tell you that citizens are not magicians to know which facility is a national security installation or not.
“So, the rule is and has always been that there should be a warning notice that must be pasted within the vicinity that warns the general public that the area is marked as a security zone therefore photographing, filming and in some cases loitering is prohibited. In fact, in some situations, there is even a requirement on font size of the notice and visibility of notice. There are even recommended colours for such notices.
“So how is a journalist or a member of the public supposed to know that a car park is a national security installation? Even if one was arrested for photographing a Security installation, there is procedure to follow, National Security is not a court, the only institution that can exact punishment is the court, No one can beat or molest a citizen for breaking the law except the court”
Raymond Archer held that the National Security can in no way operate or arrest persons outside the laws of the country irrespective of the wrongdoing.
"In any case, the punishment for photographing a security installation is not beating, harassment and torture, etc., it is prescribed in the constitution. So National Security cannot break the law by attempting to enforce the law. He who seeks justice they say must come with clean hands,” he wrote.
Read Raymond Archer’s full write-up below:
Raymond Archer Writes
I have studied National Security and I have Studied the application of intelligence. And anyone with basic training in protecting strategic national Security installations will tell you that citizens are not magicians to know which facility is a national security installation or not.
So the rule is and has always been that there should be a warning notice that must be pasted within the vicinity that warns the general public that the area is marked as a security zone therefore photographing, filming and in some cases loitering is prohibited.
Infact in some situations, there is even a requirement on font size of the notice and visibility of notice. There are even recommended colours for such notices. So how is a journalist or a member of the public supposed to know that a car park is a national security installation?.
Even if one was arrested for photographing a Security installation, there is procedure to follow, National Security is not a court, the only institution that can exact punishment is the court,
No one can beat or molest a citizen for breaking the law except the court. In any case, the punishment for photographing a security installation is not beating, harassment and torture etc, it is prescribed In the constitution. So National Security cannot break the law by attempting to enforce the law. He who seeks justice they say must come with clean hands.
In any case my understanding is that the journalist already succeeded in taking the photos, so where was national security? They already failed to protect the installation from photography, they failed in their preventive function. What they are doing to this journalist is a response to their own failure to protect what they claim is a security installation. If this was an enemy attack, Ghana would have already been under attack.
What is the difference between what is happening to journalists these days and what happened to Selassie Jantua's identification haircut under national security. Look how far back we are walking back as people to repeat things we thought we have been put behind us.
The last time, someone took a bulldozer and raised down a completed hotel with the justification that it was on a water way. Look how many businesses have been raised down in the past few years. Look how far back we have to look. The issue in Ghana is that there are no consequences for erring security officers because there is no proper oversight accountability.
And for the media in Ghana, they are so divided that they don't even notice common threat signals against their profession. They don't seem to care about their collective protection. Imagine if there is a national news blackout in protest to the emerging trends of media harassment.
#newsblackout. It reminds me of something my colleague in the Romanian intelligence once told me in Israel, about how to divide the media and eventually cow them.
He said that in order to cow the entire media you have to first target the fringe journalists/ minority or you target the most hated journalists.
The majority will be oblivious and won't care, so by the time you come for the mainstream/ majority/ journalists, their silence over what happened to the attacks on fringe journalists would be used against them by the minority so much so that the essence of your attack on the media will rather result in a dog fight between mainstream journalists and fringe journalists. I feel that is what is happening in Ghana.
Even the GJA is unable to defend the arrest, assault, beating and torture of their own member. If you read sign language, you know what writing is on the wall.
Minister for National Security, Albert Kan Dapaah
