Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Ghana.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Ghana. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** Palestinian held in
Ghana: ‘I was tortured for 35 days’ Middle east Monitor
MEMO, 1 April 2019 www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190401-palestinian-held-in-ghana-i-was-tortured-for-35-days/ [accessed 20 May
2019] AOHR UK confirmed
that Baajour was “subjected to physical torture,
beating all over his body, psychological torture, insult and verbal abuse by white-skinned
officers speaking little Arabic”. Baajour added: “They
detained me in a narrow room, 1×1 meters, deprived me of sleep for up to
three consecutive days, poured cold water on me and beat me on the head
strongly, in addition to handcuffing my hands and feet all the time. They
threatened me with kidnapping my 12-year-old daughter and killing her, while
verbally abusing me.” 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Ghana U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor,
30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/ghana/
[accessed 21 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL,
INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT In April there were
multiple accusations of police aggressively enforcing the government’s
COVID-19 lockdown measures. In some instances witnesses filmed police beating
civilians with horsewhips, canes, and similar implements. Impunity remained a
significant problem in the Ghana Police Service. Corruption, brutality, poor
training, lack of oversight, and an overburdened judicial system contributed
to impunity. Police often failed to respond to reports of abuses and, in many
instances, did not act unless complainants paid for police transportation and
other operating expenses. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Officials held much
of the prison population in buildings that were originally colonial forts or
abandoned public or military buildings, which despite improvements had poor
ventilation and sanitation, substandard construction, and inadequate space
and light. The Ghana Prisons Service periodically fumigated and disinfected
prisons. There were not enough toilets available for the number of prisoners,
with as many as 100 prisoners sharing one toilet, and toilets often
overflowed with excrement. ARREST PROCEDURES
AND TREATMENT OF DETAINEES Inadequate
recordkeeping contributed to prisoners being held in egregiously excessive
pretrial detention, a few for up to 10 years. Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/ghana/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 12 May 2020] F3. IS THERE PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE
USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR AND INSURGENCIES? Ghana’s prisons are
overcrowded, and conditions are often life-threatening, though the prison
service has attempted to reduce congestion and improve the treatment of
inmates in recent years. Like a Death
Sentence - Abuses against Persons with Mental Disabilities in Ghana Human Rights Watch,
2 Oct 2012 www.hrw.org/report/2012/10/02/death-sentence/abuses-against-persons-mental-disabilities-ghana [accessed 26 July
2017] People with mental
disabilities in Ghana whom Human Rights Watch interviewed endured a variety
of human rights abuses in psychiatric facilities and prayer camps. These
include, but are not limited to: involuntary admission and arbitrary
detention, prolonged detention, overcrowding and poor hygiene, chaining,
forced seclusion, lack of shelter, denial of food, denial of adequate health
care, involuntary treatment, stigma and its consequences, physical and verbal
abuse, electroconvulsive therapy, and violations against children with
disabilities. Ghana’s Treatment
of Mentally Ill May Be Torture, UN Report Says Pauline Bax, Bloomberg News, 10 March 2014 www.businessweek.com/news/2014-03-10/ghana-s-treatment-of-mentally-ill-may-be-torture-un-report-says [accessed 17 March
2014] www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-10/ghana-s-treatment-of-mentally-ill-may-be-torture-un-report-says [accessed 25 August
2016] The practice in
Ghana of shackling the mentally ill to trees, depriving them of food or using
electroshock therapy without anesthesia may constitute torture, according to
the United Nations. People with mental
disabilities in the West African nation live in inhumane conditions in
psychiatric hospitals or are shackled to receive so-called spiritual healing
in prayer camps, Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez, said in a report
presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva today. “Shackling of any
duration, denial of food and medicine, inadequate shelter and involuntary
treatment constitute torture,” Mendez said. CHRAJ speaks for
victims of torture Amnesty
International AI, Annual Report 2013 www.ghananewsagency.org/social/chraj-speaks-for-victims-of-torture-61541
[accessed 22 Jan
2014] Mr Joseph Whittal said
the day served as a reminder to all that torture and other cruel inhuman and
degrading treatment are international crimes against humanity. He said in Ghana although the issue of
torture was considered illegal, it was yet to be tackled nationwide as grave
injustices still persisted within the Ghanaian society. He said reports of
Police brutality remained a recurring problem in communities, while the
excessive use of force during arrest, high-handed attempts to enforce law,
and orderly conduct as well as forced evictions of inhabitants from their
homes and properties by security forces continued to be the order of the
day. Additionally, he said, the
inhumane and degrading treatment of persons in detention centres including
police cells, prisons and prayer camps continued to be areas where citizens
rights were infringed upon with impunity. Conclusions and
recommendations of the Committee against Torture U.N. Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment -- Doc. CAT/C/GHA/CO/1
(2011) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/observations/ghana2011.html [accessed 27
February 2013] Coerced confessions 13. The Committee values
the information and clarification given by the representative of the State
party in respect of the 1975 Evidence Decree (NRCD 323), which regulates the
taking of evidence in legal proceedings, and which renders inadmissible as
evidence statements made in the absence of “an independent witness approved
by the person other a police officer or a member of the Armed Forces”.
However, the Committee is concerned that the regulation does not refer
explicitly to torture. It is also concerned at the lack of information on
decisions taken by the Ghanaian courts to refuse confessions obtained under
torture as evidence (art. 15). The State party
should ensure that legislation concerning evidence to be adduced in judicial
proceedings is brought in line with the provisions of article 15 of the
Convention, so as to explicitly exclude any evidence obtained as a result of
torture. The Committee
requests the State party to submit information on the application of the 1975
Evidence Decree, and on whether any officials have been prosecuted and
punished for extracting a confession under torture. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For current
articles:: Search Amnesty
International Website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=ghana+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 2 January 1, 2019] Scroll
Down ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61572.htm [accessed 28 January
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61572.htm [accessed 4 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits such practices; however, there continued to be credible reports
that police beat and abused suspects, prisoners, demonstrators, and other
citizens. Security force use of torture resulted in at least one death during
the year (see section 1.a.). Severe beatings of suspects in police custody
reportedly occurred throughout the country but largely went unreported. In
many cases, police denied allegations or claimed that force was justified. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance
& Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st Century- Ghana",
http://gvnet.com/torture/Ghana.htm, [accessed <date>] |
