Mass Rape Story Refered To NMC

The government has officially lodged a complaint at the National Media Commission (NMC) against two radio stations in the country for broadcasting reports on an alleged armed-robbery attack and mass rape on a Tamale-bound passenger bus, which have turned out to be a hoax.

A petition signed by the Minister of Information, Mr John Tia Akologu, requested the two stations, Joy FM and Adom FM, based in Accra and Tema respectively, to retract the said stories and apologise to the government, the hardworking security agencies and the good people of Ghana.

Copies of the petition were sent to the Ghana Journalists Association, Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association, the Inspector General of Police, National Security Co-ordinator, the Vice President and the Chief of Staff, Office of the President.

The petition further urged that the consequences of such conduct were made clear to those media houses and asked the NMC to initiate moves to remind them of their journalistic ethics and mandate.

Last week, Adom FM and Joy FM claimed that an armed robbery attack occurred on a Tamale-bound passenger bus in which female passengers were allegedly raped en masse by the robbers and male passengers in turn.

The reports also claimed that a father was ordered to have sex with her 14-year old virgin daughter at gun-point in an accident which occurred around Kintampo in the Brong Ahafo Region. Later reports suggested that the incident took place around Ejisu in the Ashanti Region.

The petition said in subsequent discussions on the two radio stations, the country was described as unsafe and the police were doing little to protect the people while the government and President John Evans Atta Mills were accused of failing to guarantee the people their safety contrary to his promise and mandate.

The petition said the false reports and the prominence given to the same by those radio stations had obviously created substantial fear in the unsuspecting public, leaving many citizens with a sense of perplexity and insecurity.

It said as it had become obvious, investigations conducted by the security agencies had revealed that the claims by Amina, the woman who gave an account of the incident on Adom FM, about which Adom FM did not do the requisite background checks, were nothing but a fabrication.

The petition said several passengers, including the driver of the same Yutong bus on which Amina travelled, had denied her claims both to the police and publicly on radio stations, insisting that they were not even robbed neither was there any mass rape.

Rather, the statement said the passengers indicated that their bus was shot at but the driver sped off, refusing to stop until they arrived at their destination safely.

The petition said the government was convinced that the false, baseless, unfounded and unsubstantiated reports by Adom FM and Joy FM (which were subsequently reported by other local and online news media) could have been avoided if little attention had been given to the basic ethics of the journalistic profession.

It said while it was obvious that the government and security agencies were confronted with enormous challenges in fighting organised crime and protecting the citizenry, the last thing anybody should do was to compound the situation with fabrications and false alarm.

Those fabrications and false alarm, the petition stated, only diverted the attention of the already over-stretched men and women in uniform, who were forced to investigate and pursue such claims, which turned out to be false.

They could have otherwise been allowed to focus their energies on real crime and actually protect the good people of this country.

“ It is sad that this is not the only instance in recent times as the false GREDA death threat claim, and the misrepresentation of the World Economic Forum Report, among others, remain fresh in the minds of Ghanaians,” the petition stated.