Court discharges 21 LGBTQI suspected activists after two months of legal hurdles
A Ho High Court has acquitted and discharged some 21 persons suspected to be LGBTQI activists arrested in the Volta Regional capital, Ho.
The accused persons who were arrested on May 20 this year for unlawful assembly at the Nurses and Midwives Hotel in Ho, were freed due to lack of sufficient evidence.
The trial judge, Justice Yaw Owoahene-Acheampong, was of the view that the available evidence presented by state prosecution did not satisfy reasonable evidence for prosecution.
The charge of unlawful assembly levelled against the individuals was earlier dropped by the Attorney-General’s office.
The accused persons, 16 females and five males, suspected to be lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex, believed to be from the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Upper East, Upper West, Western, Eastern, Northern and Volta regions were subsequently discharged and dockets closed.
Some materials including books and flyers retrieved from the accused persons according to the court were not retrieved from the participants but the room of the organizer of the event.
The accused persons also denied being gays and lesbians.
According to them, they were being taught chapter 5 of the 1992 Constitution which talks about fundamental human rights and were at the paralegal stages when they were apprehended by the police.
The organizers of the conference added that the accused persons were persons living with HIV/AIDS, and were being taught how to deal with legal procedures as persons living with HIV/AIDS.
Earlier calls for their release
On June 4, United Nations (UN) human rights experts entreated the government to release 21 suspected LGBTQI persons who were arrested for unlawful assembly.
In a statement condemning the arrest and alleged arbitrary detention of the persons, the UN experts said the 21 were arrested for “defending the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse (LGBTQI) community”.
“We are deeply concerned by the arrests of the human rights defenders. All evidence available to us points to the fact that they were detained while they were peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association.
“Human rights defenders play a key role in protecting vulnerable groups from violence and discrimination and empowering them to claim their human rights. Ghana should ensure that no one is criminalized for defending the fundamental rights of LGBT people,” the UN’s independent human rights experts said.