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Alert

Newspaper editor harassed, chased by guards of suspected drug criminal

(MFWA/IFEX) - On 12 September 2006, Andrew Edwin Arthur, editor of 'The Independent", a tri-weekly newspaper in Accra, was chased by security personnel guarding the confiscated residence of Kwabena Amaning, a suspected drug criminal who is on remand for drug related offences.

Arthur was chased away while taking a photograph of the confiscated mansion at East Legon, a suburb of Accra. The Serious Fraud Office (SFO), a state investigatory body, announced on 8 September the freezing of the assets of 21 individuals who are being investigated for narcotics-related offences.

The editor told MFWA that, while taking photographs of the plush mansion, a tall, dark, well-built middle-aged man came out of the house and threateningly asked him to surrender his camera. He said he managed to escape and sought refuge in a near-by cassava farm.

The editor's driver, Tanko Ibrahim, was also chased off by one of the guards on a motorbike.

Increasingly, hired thugs are harassing and intimidating journalists in the wake of cocaine scandals currently being investigated. Three other journalists have been attacked, threatened and insulted by sympathizers of suspected drug criminals.

MFWA strongly condemns these attacks, which unduly stifle media freedom as guaranteed under the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, and repeats its call to the minister of the interior and the inspector general of police to ensure maximum protection for journalists.