Editor of online news portal, Modernghana.com has revealed harrowing torture at the hands of national security operatives after he and his colleagues were picked up last Thursday.
He told JoyNews Monday, he was beaten up, slapped for unconvincing answers and electric shocks applied to his ear.
The National Security Ministry had said their arrest was in connection with alleged cyber crimes.
Gun-wielding operatives stormed the company’s office in Accra without a warrant and strapped the heads of two of the staff in black polythene bags, a staff has recounted.
They were then whisked away.
“All we knew was that we were in a building,” editor Emmanuel Ajafor Abugri told JoyNews following his release Saturday.
He said there was no question about alleged cyber crimes. Their captors focussed exclusively on the publication of two articles.
The opinion pieces was related to a protracted conflict at the University of Education Winneba.
Emmanuel Abugri explained, he received the articles under the name ‘Constant Kwabeng’ and published after it met their editorial policy.
He stressed to the operatives “I am not the one who wrote it”, an answer that did not insulate him from physical assault.
The journalist said, the operatives did not believe he could go ahead and publish an opinion from an unquainted source and concluded it must be him.
“They beat me a lot” he said and revealed he was handcuffed and punched in an interrogation that lasted an hour.
He said he lost his breath for a while after he was elbowed at his backbone. “I had to open my mouth and gush in air”
According to him he was asked to lean again the wall with legs up, heads down doing press-ups.
“I cried like a new born baby”
credit: myjoyonline.com
Joe Bright Nyarko
Journalist/Communication Researcher. Environment & Sustainability Advocate. Managing Editor of aptnewsghana.com, a non-profit news portal with bias towards environment and sustainability issues, rural development policies and gender & inequality.
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