The Inspector General of Police, Dr George Akuffo Dampare, has cautioned officers deployed to provide security for the Arise Ghana demonstration to treat the protesters with respect and dignity.
According to him, the police officers should be professional in their treatment and interaction with demonstrators. He indicated that the police “should treat them the way we would have loved to be treated if we were on the other side”.
“We should continue to remember that those demonstrators are human beings like us, those demonstrators are Ghanaians like us; they are our brothers and sisters. Therefore, we should treat them with all the respect, the civility and dignity that each and every human being deserves.”
Dr George Akufoo Dampare
Addressing the police today, June 28, 2022, ahead of the demonstration, Dr Dampare advised officers to help protestors who may need help in carrying out the demonstration. This, he explained, will bode well for the reputation of the Police Service.
“If it is you or your effort that is going to take for somebody to continue to live to accomplish his or her God-given destiny, please do that and do that joyously, do that with love, do that with a sense of humility and humanity, and at the end of the day, we win the hearts and minds of the demonstrators.”
Dr George Akuffo Dampare
Mobile police hospitals deployed
To ensure safety on the demonstration ground, Dr Dampare highlighted that the Service will be deploying two mobile police hospitals for the purpose of the demonstration both for law enforcement officers and also “for any demonstrator that may need our assistance in this regard”.
“We want to show the world that our democracy is growing from strength to strength and this is the finest opportunity to demonstrate and that we cannot miss this opportunity.”
Dr George Akuffo Dampare
The IGP equally set a target for the Police as the protests begin. The plan, he noted, should ensure that the demonstrators themselves and “leadership will be so happy with the police that they will say thank you to the Police”. Additionally, he stated that the outcome of the demonstration must leave a good impression on Ghanaians about the police.
“Two, the rest of the people of Ghana will also be so glad in terms of the Police conducts itself and in terms of the way the demonstrators have behaved such that we can be proud of ourselves as a country and three, the rest of the world will continue to see us as a beacon of hope in the sub-region and beyond when it comes to democracy.”
Dr George Akuffo Dampare
It will be recalled that the Police engaged in a legal tussle to challenge the proposed time and routes for the two-day protests in Accra beginning Tuesday, June 28, as the demonstrators sought to protest the current economic hardships.
DSP Sylvester Asare urged the court to adjourn the matter since the Ghana Police Service was yet to receive documents filed by the protestors. However, the lawyer for the protestors, Godwin Tamakloe, accused the Police of bad faith, insisting that the protest was to take place on Tuesday.
Mr Tamakloe told the court that granting an adjournment will effectively mean putting the protest on hold.
In its ruling, the High Court stated that the demonstration should take place between 8 am and 4 pm on the route proposed by the Police instead of running the demonstration into the night. It further directed that the protest should commence at the Obra Spot here in Accra and end at the Independence Square.
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