The Minority in Parliament have announced an indefinite boycott of the House until a man remanded in custody for accusing ex-President Rawlings of burning his own house is released.

The Minority group, mostly clad in red and black clothes addressed a press conference, led by Minority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, and called on all who cherish democracy to rise up against what he described as the manipulation of the security apparatus to silence opponents.

Nana Darkwa, a 27-year-old New Patriotic Party activist, was arrested from the premises of Top Radio, an Accra-based radio station, for claiming that he knew the former president burnt his own house, which was reduced to ashes on Sunday.

A circuit court on Thursday remanded him in custody for two weeks after he was arraigned on the charge of publishing false news with the intent to cause fear and alarm to the public.

The Minority also demanded that NDC functionaries like Ama Benyiwa Doe, Asiedu Nketiah, Mr Rawlings himself, among others who made similar criminal statements against officials of the NPP should be arrested and prosecuted.

The Minority held that the “unfettered freedoms” Ghanaians enjoyed for eight years under NPP rule is now being substituted with NDC's “dark days”.

They maintained that Thursday’s action was not different from the era where Odartey Willington, Kweku Baako Jnr and Harruna Attah among others were arrested for exercising their freedom of speech, and it is a clear indication of “unrepentant nature of the NDC”.

 

 

They called on persons who cherish freedom to stand up against the “naked attempt by the NDC to muscle the press and criminalize freedom of speech”.

They also asked the government not to distance itself from the case as being portrayed by “a deputy Information Minister” that the government has no hand in it, and reminded the minister of Article 88(3) of the 1992 Constitution about the role of the Attorney-General in such prosecutions.

The Minority urged President Mills to intervene in the case, and reiterated that until a favourable response is given, “we will resist oppressor’s rule with all our might” in consonance with Ghana’s national anthem.

The Group also described the judge’s decision to confine the young man for that period as “appalling”.


source Myjoyonline.com/Ghana