The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Minority has noted with concern a planned and deliberate violent attack on United TV (UTV) by ‘hoodlums’ during the station’s Saturday night entertainment show, United Showbiz.
A statement issued by Mr ABA Fuseini, the Ranking Member on the Committee on Communications, said: “We condemn the backward, primitive, uncivilised and violent disruption of the live television programme by the thugs whose singular motivation was to visit mayhem and anarchy on the station as well as the show’s host and panelists.”
The statement said it was a matter of public record that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Government had been unhappy with the UTV show for a while now and had officially written to the station to change the show’s editorial policy and turn it into ‘another praise-singing programme for the Government’.
It said Saturday night’s attack on UTV added to the already long list of sponsored attacks on the media as part of a systematic clampdown on media freedom and free speech.
It said the purpose of free speech was defeated if it was limited to just the expression of pleasant speech.
It said the Government must be reminded that this was a constitutional democracy with media freedoms and free speech guaranteed.
The statement said it therefore could not continue to bastardise the constitutional rights by harassing media organisations and media practitioners simply because the government did not like what was said or that its poor performance was subjected to public scrutiny and its sins exposed.
It said the Minority was calling on the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and other civil society groups to roundly condemn the thuggery and ‘hold the Government accountable for these shameful and backward attacks on the media by pro-government goons.
