Military must respect democracy

Abraham Amaliba, Director General NSRA has strongly condemned the recent assault on journalists by military personnel, describing the incident as shocking and unacceptable in a democratic society.

According to him, the police should have been the ones supervising this work and not the military and he is happy that the President, in his own words, has ordered the military to investigate the matter.

Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile program, Mr. Amaliba said he was “shocked to the bone marrow” after watching footage of the military brutally beating journalists during an assignment, stressing that it should have been the police, not soldiers, overseeing such civil matters.

I’m told and I can inform you that the military men involved are now in the guard room and investigations are ongoing.” he stressed.

While welcoming the disciplinary steps taken so far, Mr. Amaliba emphasized the need for deeper reforms within Ghana’s security institutions. He called for a review of the curricula of the country’s security training schools to align them with democratic principles.

“Do they have subjects such as democracy, good governance, and media law? I’m asking because they are operating in a democratic setting and must be trained to be amenable to democratic principles,” he stated.

He warned that without modernization of training frameworks, incidents of abuse and disregard for civil liberties will persist.

“If you have curricula that are old-fashioned—relics from colonial times or when they were trained as a force then you’ll continue to see some of these abuses,” he noted. “Moving forward, this should be the end. We must draw a line.”

Mr. Amaliba further stressed that even in cases of unprofessional conduct by journalists, there are legal and procedural remedies—violence should never be an option.

“You don’t treat people like animals just because you think they’ve done wrong. There are remedies to unruly or unprofessional journalism, but not violence,” he concluded.