Ghana: RSF condemns the assault of three environmental journalists reporting on a mining site
Erastus Asare Donkor, Majid Alidu and Nicholas Suantah, journalists for Multimedia Group Limited, were violently assaulted by a group of armed men while reporting on a mining site in the south of the country. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns this attack on environmental journalists and calls on the authorities to do everything in their power to bring those responsible to justice.
"They started to beat us up. It was repeated hot slaps and punches" recounted Erastus Asare Donkor, a renowned journalist awarded for his articles on illegal mining and environmental degradation. On Sunday, 20 October, Erastus Asare Donkor and his coworkers — cameraman Nicholas Suantah, drone pilot Majid Alidu, and their driver Edward Arko — were violently attacked.
The journalists — employees of the country's largest media group, Multimedia Group Limited — were investigating the farmland destruction and water pollution caused by the mining company Edelmetallum Mining Resources Limited in Asumenya, a locality in the Ashanti region in southern Ghana. The reporters were approached by a group of more than ten men armed with shotguns who claimed to work for the company. They forced the team of journalists into their vehicle, and armed men on motorcycles escorted them to a remote forest area.
"They asked us to take our phones and open them so they can format them. I told them we can’t lose everything on our phones. Then they started to beat us up", Erastus Asare Donkor told RSF. Their equipment, including their tablet and SD cards, were seized. The assailants then took photos of the journalists and threatened to "deal with them" before leaving, injured, in the forest, according to RSF’s information.
The journalists filed a complaint with the police in Manso Adubia, a town in Ashanti, who went to the scene without arresting any suspects. Police told the reporters they would return "later" to make arrests.
"We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, this violent attack on journalists who were simply doing their jobs. Any social issue, including the environment, must be able to be addressed without fear of reprisals. We call on the authorities to bring the perpetrators of these attacks to justice. They must not go unpunished."
Kofi Adu Domfeh, Erastus Asare Donkor's superior who heads the science and environment desk at Joy News, a private TV station owned by Multimedia Group Limited, told RSF that "there is increasing impunity which threatens field reporting of environmental issues in Ghana”.
At the time of this writing, Edelmetallum Mining Resources Limited had not responded to RSF’s requests for comments.
