Executive Director of ASEPA and an executive member of Arise Ghana, Mensah Thompson, has intimated that the police notice to halt the demonstration is a deliberate attempt to frustrate the preparations made.
According to Mensah Thompson, if the Police had a problem with the agreement, especially with the timing, nothing should have stopped them from going to court earlier so that both parties can battle it out efficiently.
The ASEPA Executive Director stated that there is no bone of contention in Arise Ghana’s estimation and per its understanding, it has completed every form of arrangement that was necessary under the public order act with the Ghana Police Service.
“Infact, if you recall, we started the processes with the regional Police command who are in charge of the regional security and the capital.”
Mensah Thompson
Detailing the outcomes of the meetings with the Police, Mr. Thompson disclosed that the police told the group that based on a number of reasons, they could not agree to the time in the modalities of the demonstration. According to him, it became a back and forth issue because the group insisted that it is within its rights to demonstarate and they will only inform the Police in accordance to the Public Order Act.
“Due to these exchanges and the disagreement with the regional Police command, we were invited by the IGP to the national headquarters of Police, to have a high level meeting with the leadership of the Ghana Police Service.”
Mensah Thompson
Police concern was on logistics
According to Mr. Thompson, the basis of that meeting was to move the discussion, arrangement and preparation towards the demonstration to the national level of the Ghana Police Service. He stated that after the second engagement, no agreement was reached on the time frame for the demonstration. He revealed that the Police raised a lot of concerns but it was mainly on logistics.
“The concern was the capacity of the Police to provide that 48-hour non-stop protection because they are handicapped as far as logistics is concerned. We decided to go into conclave and then reconvene again to take a decision.”
Mensah Thompson
Mensah Thompson explained that after an engagement with its stakeholders, the group decided to reach a compromise of moving its demonstration from the 48-hour non-stop time frame to breaking at 10 pm on the first day and reconvening the following morning to continue.
“The last meeting we had with the Police, we told them we are willing to compromise up to 10 pm and the police said okay they can deal with 10pm. This is the last agreement before we went to print our fliers and have our engagements.”
Mensah Thompson
The ASEPA Executive Director was of the view that for the Police to wait till the last minute to come out with such a flimsy excuse, it is a clear demonstration of bad timing. He stated that if the Police wants to engender confidence, these are the very things they must avoid.
Mensah Thompson
“Because we anticipated something like this, we told the police that, this is the agreement that we have reached with you. To see them come out in this manner is very very disappointing.”
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