The Founder and General Overseer of the Royalhouse Chapel International, Apostle General, Most Rev. Sam Korankye Ankrah, has kicked against the harassment of journalists by the security agencies in the country.
“We do not support the harassment of journalists who are doing their work to speak truth to power and call power to account,” he said during the Sunday church service on the 13th of February.
He made the pronouncement when Kwabena Bobbie Ansah of Accra Fm and Thompson Mensah the Executive Director of the Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA), who were recently arrested for false news publication and later released, joined the church to thank the Lord.
“In Royalhouse Chapel you have faithful partners in the liberty of journalism and reportage in Ghana,” he told the duo
He said it is the responsibility of all to hold those in power accountable for their actions and inactions. “When we vote for them, we will call them to accountability, they would have to account for the power vested in them and the promises that they make for which we elected them. It is not going to be an assignment of journalists and the courts only but of every citizen of this nation,” he said.
Adding his voice to the several calls for the use of the courts for redress in matters such as false news publication, the Apostle General said the police investigations were unnecessary.
He also used the opportunity to call for forgiveness for the two saying, “let us learn to forgive those who are always on the microphone. The one who goes to the stream to fetch water is the one who gets wet. Within the spur of the moment, we say things that we should not say, but when you are emotionally charged, it happens.”
He further noted that journalists sometimes find themselves in trouble for things they say and write but that should not be used to condemn the profession in its entirety, adding, “It is the hazards of the work. We should learn to forgive and tolerate them and look at the work that they do for the common good of society and not the small mistakes that they commit.”
On that note the Most Rev. Korankye Ankrah apologised on their behalf to anyone who had been offended by their reportage and prayed for the duo.
