Martin Kpebu, the Director at the Human Rights and Governance Centre, has urged the State to adopt a “civil approach” in handling alleged ‘publications of false news and causing fear and alarm’ by media persons.
He said the frequent arrests and imprisonments of journalists sent bad signals about Ghana because she had a law directly on ‘publishing of false news and causing fear and alarm’ and the criminal aspect of it was found in Section 208 of the Criminal Code, popularly referred to as ‘the law of causing fear and alarm’.
“It states that where a person produces or reproduces a statement which is false in a manner that causes fear and alarm, and that statement is false, then that person has committed an offence – a misdemeanor, with a punishment between a fine and up to a maximum of three-year imprisonment,” Mr Kpebu indicated.
Commenting on whether the recent arrests of Accra FM presenter Kwabena Bobbie Ansah “over an alleged publication of false news and offensive conduct” could have been handled as a civil matter rather than involving the state, he affirmed.
Mr Kpebu explained that in a case of ‘causing fear and alarm’, it must be established the statement had been made, essentially communicated in a way to cause fear and alarm and once that had been established, thatperson is in the realm of crime.
He alluded to the fact that the state should have explored civil option because that was the idea behind repeal of the Criminal Libel Law which President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, led crusade for its repeal for such matters to be dealt with in civil realm.
“But, with Section 208 of the Criminal Code still operating, repeal of Criminal Libel Law has not done much because the value is still the same, you repealed one, but left another one which is causing the same effect making agencies becoming too overbearing and there are bound to be excesses as people, especially journalists, try to hold government accountable as constitutional duty under Article 162 clause (5) of the 1992 Constitution.
“Those excesses or mistakes are not peculiar to our democracy because we are all fallible so such matters should be referred to the National Media Commission,” Mr Kpebu pointed out. -3news.com
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