The Upper East Regional Director of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice CHRAJ, Mr. Abdulai Jalaldeen has called for severe punishment for persons proven to have tortured, maimed and been involved in or abetted the killing of an individual accused of witchcraft.
The call trails the lynching of a 90 year old woman in Kafaba in the Savannah region and the arrest of five people in the Pusiga District of the upper east region who were spotted in a video torturing some women ostensibly to exorcise them upon declaration that the frail looking women were witches.
The viral video of the self styled witch doctors who are reported to have been engaged in the activities of identifying and exorcising witches in the Pusiga area for close to two years was attached to a petition sent to the Inspector General of Police and the Presidency by Sanneh Institute, a non-governmental organization.
Commenting on the issue on Bolgatanga based Yem radio monitored by dreamzfmonline.com, the CHRAJ regional boss noted that handing down severe punishments on people who orchestrate and abet such crimes including bystanders will serve as a deterrent.
“If you commit such crimes, you should be punished and punished severely because our laws do not allow acts of that nature. They are criminal in nature. If you try somebody by ordeal, if you attempt to lynch somebody or you beat somebody to death, all those things under our laws are criminal in nature. But if people are punished and community members who were there are not punished, tomorrow they will go and encourage people to do it. Under our laws, it is your duty to ensure that the crime is not committed if there’s about to be the commission of that crime. This includes the one who is standing there or the one who is aware of the commission of the crime,” he stressed.
He argued that bystanders who fail to prevent the commission of a crime are guilty of a misdemeanor that can land an individual in jail for three years adding that “education about witchcraft should be intensified.”
Meanwhile, a human rights non-governmental organization operating in the upper east region RISE-GHANA has called for Dialogue on Citizen-Police Responsiveness and Collaboration in the fight against the abuse of persons accused of witchcraft.
