“Free speech under attack” – IPRAN protests, as Mornah honours CID invitation
Members of the anti-voter registration group, Inter-Party Resistance Against the New Voter Register (IPRAN), held protests on Tuesday against authorities they accused of oppression.
Scores of supporters marched with the Convenor for IPRAN, Bernard Mornah, from the Ako-Adjei park in Accra to the police headquarters.
The supporters who wore in red T-shirts, armbands and headgear defied the fear of contracting the dreaded coronavirus to march in groups below 100.
Placards
They carried placards with varied messages such as: “THE EC MUST LISTEN”, “HANDS OFF MORNAH”, “FREE SPEECH IS UNDER ATTACK” and “WE WON’T BE COWERED”,” STOP MANIPULATING THE EC, AKUFO-ADDO”,”FREE EXPRESSION IS A RIGHT”,” VOICE OF THE VOICELESS”.
Mr. Mornah, who is also the Chairman of the People’s National Convention (PNC), was also spotted in a red warlike smock with a red beret to match.
He was honouring an invitation to report to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for interrogation.
The law enforcement agency invited Mr Mornah to assist in investigations into comments he made regarding the compilation of a new voter roll by the Electoral Commission (EC).
The CID said Mr Mornah made the statement during a press conference by IPRAN on May 26, 2020.
“You were also heard in a video interview to have threatened “that people who are already Ghanaians and already registered are going to be taken out of the register.
“Don’t you think confusion will come at the registration and if confusion comes there, [do]you think the EC staff will be safe?
“We will beat each other there, we will kill each other there, if that is what the EC wants to lead this nation to…,” the invitation letter dated May 28, 2020, and signed by Barima Tweneboa Sasraku II, a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) for the Director-General of CID, said.
In response, Mr Mornah said his comments were caution and not threats against the EC as the public had been made to believe.
NDC’s endorsement
They accused the New Patriotic Party (NPP) of using the Ghana Police to clamp down the anti-new voter register movement.
The NDC Deputy General Secretary, Peter Boamah Otokunor, noted, “The invitation of comrade Mornah by the Ghana Police Service is nothing but political puppetism on the part of the Ghana Police service.
He said it was also part of a grand orchestration by the NPP government to intimidate and demobilise the front of the Resistance in its spirited opposition to the needless and illogical decision of the EC to compile a new voters’ register ahead of the 2020 polls”.
Meanwhile, the police have deployed a special team at its national headquarters to quell any eventualities.
A police memo signed by Director of National Operations, DCOP Dr Sayibu Pabi Gariba, called for actions including the deployment of “one platoon to take over public order management at the headquarters; to deploy adequate personnel at headquarters cafeteria exit.”