Ernesto Yeboah of the Economic Fighters League, has been arrested and detained at the Accra Central Police Station for unlawful Black Lives Matter Vigil.
According to the police, the vigil which they described as a protest, was not authorised.
Meanwhile, organisers of the vigil have produced evidence indicating they notified the police in line with the Public Order Act.
A member of the Economic Fighters League Communications team, Nii Ayi Opare, found it ironic that the police action was happening in the shadow of the Black Star Gate which proclaims “Freedom and Justice”.
“Those very rights which were promised to us by our constitutions are being defiled,” he insisted.
This was in a reaction of overwhelming police security presence brought Black Lives Matter vigil between the Black Star Square and Black Star Gate to a premature end on Saturday evening.
The vigil, attended by some 100 people, had been going on peacefully for about an hour when the police started arriving in droves.
Though the organisers insisted on calling the gathering a vigil, it had some hallmarks of a protest including placards and chanting.
At a point during the vigil, there was almost one security personnel to three attendees owing to the excessive police response.
For every placard that had America’s George Floyd, Amaud Aubery and Breona Taylor, all of whom were killed in the last few months, there were placards of the four Takoradi Girls who were kidnapped and killed in the Western Region, slain journalist with Tiger Eye P.I. Ahmed Suale and Eric Ofotsu, the Ashaiman resident shot and killed by a soldier during the lockdown of Tema.
“It was quite abnormal to have police enforcements and military reinforcements to come and disrupt and a peaceful organisation,” Arimiyaw Usama, a member of Economic Fighters League noted.
Source: GhanaFeed
