27 April 2007

Alert

District official assaults, verbally abuses TV journalists


Incident details

Kojo Hayford, Lord Asante Fordjour

journalist(s)

(MFWA/IFEX) - On 26 April 2007, reporter Kojo Hayford and cameraman Lord Asante Fordjour of TV3, an independent Accra-based television station, were mistreated by Raymond Gbegoah, coordinating director of Akuapem South District Assembly in the eastern region of Ghana.

Gbegoah slapped Fordjour and insulted the two journalists before chasing them out of his office.

The MFWA correspondent reported that the incident occurred at the district office, where Hayford and Fordjour had gone to interview Gbegoah about a mountain of refuse at a market in Nsawam, the district capital.

Gbegoah, who was outraged by the filming of the garbage, accused the journalists of having bad motives and insinuated that the filming of the refuse was intended to ridicule his administration and bring the image of the district into disrepute.

It was learned that, immediately following the incident, Gbegoah dispatched a team to remove the refuse.



Source

Media Foundation for West Africa
PO Box LG 730
30 Duade Street, Kokomlemle
Legon, Accra
Ghana
alerts (@) mediafound.org
Phone: +233 21 242470
Fax: +233 21 221084

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