Date: Aug 06 , 2019 .BY: Benjamin Xornam Glover
A reporter with the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL),
Ms Della Russell Ocloo, has lodged a formal complaint of assault against 15
congregants of the Glorious
Way Church
 |
| Ms Della Russel Ocloo |
Ms Ocloo, who is a Tema
Regional correspondent of the GCGL, also included two policemen in the
complaint lodged at the Sakumono Police Station last Sunday.
The
journalist was allegedly manhandled by some security details of the church and
two policemen when she went to the church last Sunday to cover a publicised
demonstration by some women against Prophet Kobi for comments he made against
women of certain ethnic backgrounds.
Ms Ocloo is said to have
taken a video of the congregants kneeling and holding the shoes of Prophet Kobi
for him to bless them during the service.
Some of the congregants
allegedly rained insults on her and threatened to beat her if she did not
delete the said video, but the police have explained that Ms Ocloo was whisked
away to the Sakumono Police Station to save her from potential harm.
Ms Ocloo’s account
According to Ms Ocloo,
she was spotted by one of the security men at the church, whose name she gave
as Amofa, when she was taking the video.
The said Amofa
reportedly walked her out of the auditorium and, when they got outside, asked
her to delete the video, but just when she was about to do so, their
interactions attracted other members of the church and about 15 men reportedly
surrounded her.
“One woman actually brought out a baton with a nail on it and said: ‘Ah, she is
alone. Even if we hurt her, no one will know about it. Let’s terrify her to
send that as a warning to the others’,” she narrated.
Ms Ocloo said she was
saved by a man who said he was a national security operative who approached her
and asked for her identity card.
Having verified her
identity, the man also asked her to delete the video but before she could do
that, Amofa – who had earlier left the scene – returned with two policemen to
effect her arrest.
According to the reporter, the policemen from the Sakumono Police Station tried
to handcuff her but she volunteered to walk to their car herself.
She said on her way to
the car, the women who had earlier threatened her also walked towards her.
Ms Ocloo said apart from
the psychological trauma she went through, not just at the hands of the church
members but also at the hands of the two policemen who took her to the police
station, she felt pains in her left wrist where the men and the police both
tried to wrest her phone from her before she was sent to the police station.
Police station
Ms Ocloo said when she
got to the Sakumono Police Station, the station officer requested to have
access to her phone, which she declined.0
The station officer, she
said, kept interrogating her but she responded that she would only talk in the
presence of her lawyer.
Finally, a police
investigator gave her his phone, which she used to call her husband.
According to her, it was
after the arrival of her husband and another friend that she wrote her
statement, after which she was allowed to go home.
Police reaction
Meanwhile, the police
have reacted to the incident and explained that Ms Ocloo was whisked away to
the Sakumono Police Station to save her from potential harm.
The Public Relations
Officer of the Accra Regional Police Command, Deputy Superintendent of Police
(DSP) Ms Effia Tenge, told the Daily Graphic that some church members called
the police after Ms Ocloo refused to hand over her phone to them.
According to her, the
police rushed to the scene, rescued Ms Ocloo and took her to the Sakumono
Police Station.
She said at the police
station, the journalist did not hand over her phone and also did not write her
statement, stressing that she insisted on speaking to her lawyer first.
DSP Tenge said it was
after the arrival of some persons related to the reporter that she gave her
statement to the police after which she was released.
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