Today, Wednesday May 3, 2023, marks the celebration for World Freedom Day all over the world. This year’s theme for celebration the World Freedom Day is “Shaping A Future Of Rights: Freedom Of Expression As A Driver For All Other Human Rights.”
The Executive Director of Media Foundation For West Africa, Sulemana Briamah shared his thoughts about the progress, and setbacks on press freedom in Ghana on the Sunrise Show.
Been quizzed by the Show’s host is the press really free in Ghana, his response was “I wouldn’t say we’re as free as one would wish but, relative to other countries I wouldn’t also say that the situation is quite dire, so we need to improve on the current situation but if compared to other nations our is quite better.”
When asked by Johnnie Hughes about Ghana’s 2023 ranking index Mr. Briamah said;“I would say that the situation continues to deteriorate, we can do better as a country. Per our records in the previous years, Ghana shouldn’t be where we are. We used to be around 28th , 29th and 30th in the world. Even in 2018 we were number one in Africa in 2018 and I think we were 29th in the world.”
“To drop to 62nd is not the best of situation. Unfortunately I think that even there continue to be violations against journalists and other conditions that further undermine press freedom in the country continues to persist.”
“We have a government that appears to believe in rhetorics, saying all manner of things that are not been done and sometimes also leaving in denial even if the facts are there and you raise them, they will counter them as though they have evidence contrary to what the facts are and so it not the best of situation even though we are better than other countries given our track record, we should work towards improvement.”