General News of Thursday, 10 January 2002

Source: .

NDC calls on Police to act to stop harassment of its members

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has called on the Police Administration to act to stop the physical assault, intimidation and harassment of its members by a group of supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) at Akomadan in the Offinso North constituency.

The party expressed concern about what it perceived to be the inaction of the Police to bring to order "The lawless NPP supporters".

The Offinso North Constituency Chairman of NDC, Nana Kwadwo Appiah-Kubi, who was addressing a press conference in Kumasi, cautioned that if the situation was allowed to persist it could explode into something nasty.

He spoke of instances where their members had allegedly been brutalised and the party's flag vandalised by the NPP activists. Nana Appiah-Kubi said on the mid-night of December 31, last year, an NDC supporter, whose name he could not readily provide, who he said attempted to usher in the new year by raising the flag of the party was set upon by some NPP supporters and mercilessly thrashed.

He said a day after, an NDC flag hoisted on a long pole in front of the party's office at Akomadan was pulled down by the same group and in the process the falling pole hit a pregnant woman supporter of the party.

The NDC Chairman said in all those cases formal complaints were made to the local Police at Akomadan but they had not made any attempt to bring "the perpetrators of the savage acts of political terrorism to face the law. "They are walking the streets taunting and bragging that they cannot be arrested," Nana Appiah-Kubi added.

Mr. Emmanuel Nti-Fordjour, Ashanti Regional Chairman of NDC, deplored what he said was the notoriety of NPP supporters in that town for acts of political violence.