Amnesty Int Lauds President

Amnesty International, Ghana, has lauded President J. A Kufuor for his commitment to the promotion of human rights in the country.

In a statement, Amnesty International mentioned in particular, President Kufuor's pronouncement of the government's commitment to human rights when he interacted with executive members of the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association who called on him at the Castle on Tuesday.

It, however, called on the government to demonstrate its commitment to human rights by putting in place pragmatic and effective machinery to ensure that the rights of the people were not abused.

“Amnesty International Ghana is concerned that human rights issues are increasingly attracting the attention of key officials in government, while enjoying a wider range of discussions in recent times at the initiative of those in the human rights fraternity,” it said.

The statement also called on government agencies such as the Ghana Police Service, the Prisons Service, the Ghana Armed Forces and all allied agencies to expand their training syllabi to include the various aspects of human rights education to facilitate respect for such rights.

It suggested to the Liberal Studies Department of the various tertiary institutions to include courses on human rights in their course content and urged the Ministry of Education and Sports to ensure that human rights were taught in basic schools.

The said those calls had become more crucial than ever before, given the rising plethora of gross abuse, violation and infraction of human rights, sometimes with impunity.

“To a large extent, this unfortunate state of affairs is encouraged by the degree to which many citizens appear to be barren when it comes to human rights,” it said, adding that “issues of fundamental rights can no longer be relegated to the background and the time has come for all and sundry to act now”.