(This report covers the period January-December 1997)

At least 13 possible prisoners of conscience, arrested in previous years, remained imprisoned throughout the year. Dozens of suspects were reportedly ill-treated following rioting in November. At least three prisoners were sentenced to death; none was known to have been executed.

In March the Supreme Court ruled that legislation providing for up to 10 years' imprisonment for false reporting likely to injure the reputation of the government was not in contravention of the right to freedom of expression contained in the 1992 Constitution (see Amnesty International Report 1997).

In April the government rejected some of the findings of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (chraj), established in 1993 to investigate and remedy human rights violations against senior government officials investigated for corruption. In June the government sought a ruling in the Supreme Court to stop the chraj from ordering redress in cases of arbitrary dismissal by the previous, military government. Transitional Provisions inserted in the 1992 Constitution by the outgoing military government gave immunity from prosecution to officials in the two military governments headed by Flight-Lieutenant (now President) J.J. Rawlings after coups in 1979 and 1981. No ruling had been given by the end of the year. The Supreme Court had still given no date for hearing an application made by the chraj in early 1996. The government had challenged the powers of the chraj to investigate allegations that the government was involved in the killing of five demonstrators in Accra in May 1995. Armed government supporters were alleged to have killed the protesters during a demonstration against tax rises. By the end of the year, there had still been no thorough and impartial investigation into these allegations

The government ignored calls by Ghanaians for independent investigations to determine whether excessive force had been used in several incidents in which at least four people died. These included a demonstration in Kumasi in March in which two protesters were reportedly shot in the back of the head by police using assault rifles. In October at least one teenager was reportedly shot dead by police during rioting in Nima, in Accra, the capital. In Akwatia, Eastern Region, in November, a police officer and one other person were killed in disputed circumstances when police tried to disperse a crowd protesting about the arrest of criminal suspects. In December, one man died when police tried to prevent a crowd forcibly releasing suspects arrested after clashes between Muslim groups in Wa, Upper West Region. The government said that police and troops had come under attack and had used lethal force only when other methods of crowd control had failed to disperse protesters.

In October, Kwesi Biney, a journalist, and Frank Awuah, circulation manager of the African Observer magazine, were detained for two days before being released to await trial on charges of criminal libel. They and two others not in court were alleged to have defamed a government minister.

At least 13 possible prisoners of conscience remained imprisoned throughout the year. Defence lawyers for Karim Salifu Adam, a leading member of the opposition New Patriotic Party (npp), protested after he was sent for retrial on treason charges in July without their knowledge. He was still awaiting judgment after a trial by a specially appointed High Court in which all the evidence had been heard by November 1996 (see Amnesty International Reports 1995 and 1997). Judgment was due to be given in January 1997, but was postponed repeatedly because of the ill health and subsequent death of one of the judges. Karim Salifu Adam alleged that he had been charged with treason because he had refused to implicate opposition leaders and neighbouring governments in a fictitious coup conspiracy. His allegations that he was tortured while in incommunicado and illegal detention after his arrest in May 1994 were not thoroughly and impartially investigated.

The treason trial of five other possible prisoners of conscience – Sylvester Addai-Dwomoh, Kwame Alexander Ofei, Kwame Ofori-Appiah, Emmanuel Kofi Osei and John Kwadwo Owusu-Boakye – started in July, when they were brought before a specially appointed High Court in Accra. They had been arrested in September 1994 and accused of plotting to overthrow the government (see Amnesty International Reports 1995 and 1997). The trial had not finished by the end of the year.

At least seven political prisoners convicted of treason in the 1980s remained in prison. Their trials by Public Tribunals did not meet international standards of fairness because the Tribunals were not independent of government control. However, the prisoners were unable to appeal against their convictions or sentences because of the immunity provisions in the 1992 Constitution.

Hundreds of men were arrested in November following rioting in Akwatia and some were reported to have been beaten or otherwise ill-treated by police during transportation to Accra. Most were subsequently released without charge, but about 60 were charged with murder and reportedly held in cramped and insanitary conditions in one small cell at police headquarters in Accra.

At least three death sentences were imposed following murder convictions by the High In February, 22 prisoners had their death sentences commuted under a clemency measure announced in August 1996. They included two political prisoners, former Captain Adjei Edward Ampofo, who had been convicted in absentia of involvement in an attempted coup in 1983 and arrested in 1986; and former Sergeant Oduro Frimpong, whose death sentence, imposed in 1985 after a trial in camera for involvement in an alleged coup plot in 1984, and reportedly upheld on appeal, had not been confirmed by the government. The chraj reported in 1996 that 292 prisoners under sentence of death were being held in harsh and overcrowded conditions.

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