PRESS STATEMENT.
JAN. 17, 2020
Attn: U.S Ambassador to the United Nations, Excellency Kelly Craft.
JUSTICE FOR JOURNALIST BESTWAY ZOTTOR FROM THE HANDS OF POWER DRUNK POLITICIANS OF GHANA.
Your Excellency,
I wish to bring to your attention and diligently solicit your utmost action in a matter of Mr. Bestway Zottor, a journalist and the Director at Radio Tongu in Sogakope, a suburb of the Volta Region of Ghana. He was wrongfully arrested on January 15, 2020 by the Ghana security forces, for airing his views on the issue of the restoration of Western Togoland. (https://ghananewsagency.org/human-interest/radipo-tongu-director-arrested-for-promoting-separatists-agenda-162593)
Your Excellency,
Freedom of the press and free speech has been guaranteed both locally and internationally and Ghana’s 1992 constitution is firm on the freedom of the press. There is nowhere in the civilized world that media is allowed to be controlled by a government and the media practitioners bullied by forces loyal to a government, but this is appearing like the new norm in contemporary Ghana.
Your Excellency,
It is exactly a year now since a Ghanaian investigative Journalist, Ahmed Hussein-Suale was murdered in cold blood in broad day light in Ghana and the authorities are either adamant or not interested in bringing any footage linking to the killers.
The public is worried about how Ghanaian authorities are handling issues of the media and media men in the country, especially those who do not speak in favor of the government.
It is on this note that I respectfully call on you to use your influence and all available powers to intercept the line of injustice and foreseen calamity which is about to befall yet another Journalist – Mr. Bestway Zottor.
Injustice against a journalist anywhere is an injustice against journalist everywhere.
Thank you.
Seth Mifetu.
Cc
UN Secretary-General.
UN Security Council.
UN Human Right
Amnesty international
Ghana Journalists Association (GJA)
Private Newspaper Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG)
All media houses.