Emmanuel Kubi, a photographer with Daily Guide, an Accra-based privately-owned newspaper, was arrested and detained on the orders of an Accra High Court presiding judge, Justice James B. Benson.
Kubi was covering the trial of four criminals convicted of murder. The Ghana News Agency reported that Kubi was sent to a cell within the court premises and locked up together with the convicts and other criminals.
Kubi said in an interview that the criminals on realising he was a journalist, subjected him to further beating, threatened and insulted him. “One of them even put his finger into one of my eyes”, he said.
The journalist’s ordeal began after a scuffle with the prison officers escorting the prisoners. The officers claimed Kubi had no permission to photograph the convicts. He was allegedly slapped two times and beaten by the prison officers and family members of the convicts, following their unsuccessful attempt to seize his camera.
Western Publications Limited, publishers of Daily Guide newspaper, filed a complaint with the Chief Justice about the continuous harassment of its staff members on the courts’ premises.
According to Alhaji Abdul Rahman Gomda, the newspaper’s news editor, one of their photographers had also been assaulted the previous week.