The general public must be educated on the dangers of mob justices meted out to suspected criminals in society, Susan Adu-Amankwah, a human rights activist, has said.
According to her, there is no justification for anybody to be subjected to mob justice given that there are laws in the country.
Her comments follow the inhuman treatment meted out to a young lady who allegedly stole an amount of GHS1,100, at Kejetia, Kumasi, the Ashanti regional capital.
On February 14, the lady was stripped naked, beaten, and paraded barefooted on the streets of Kejetia in Kumasi, the Ashanti regional capital, by a marauding crowd of men, who repeatedly pushed her down, forced her legs open for mobile phone pictures and videos to be taken of her vagina, while others violently inserted their toes into her orifice and spanked her buttocks simultaneously in a noisy melee.
Desperate pleas by the fair-skinned alleged lady thief, whose clothes were all torn off except for her red brassiere, did not deter her Twi-speaking accusers from unleashing instant justice on her.
The irate crowd slapped, shoved, pulled and pushed the lady in every direction while groping her private parts.
In a short video that captured the whole incident, the lady is seen falling motionless and unresponsive on the street at a point, but the crowd kept hitting her and forcing her legs open.
Intermittent shouts by one or two men, who pleaded on the lady’s behalf, did not help matters as the crowd kept violently slapping and kicking the alleged thief in the vagina.
Speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra 100.5FM on Monday, 20 February, Ms Amankwah said: “This is an unfortunate development that could be attributed to the lack of education on the part of the people. Education is key in dealing with some of these things, and, so, we must start in the schools to teach the children not to subject people to mob action.”
“That notwithstanding, they had no excuse to treat her like that, this is bad. In several cases, people have been killed for alleged theft but eventually it turned out that those persons were innocent.”
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