The managing editor of the virtual newspaper, WhatsApp News, David Sitsofe Tamakloe, who was recently arrested by police from the Ashanti Region, has been granted bail.
The New Edubiase Magistrate Court presided over Justice Cynthia Addy, granted the Accra-based journalist a Ghȼ10,000 bail with two sureties to justify.
“I wasn’t manhandled but was put in handcuffs from Accra all the way to the Ashanti Region over the coverage of a press conference by the NDC during the new voters’ ID card registration where the party made the allegation,” David Tamakloe told GhanaWeb in an interview minutes after his bail was posted.
“I have been ordered to reappear in court on 22nd October,” he added.
David Tamakloe was arrested Wednesday, October 7, 2020, following a publication in the virtual newspaper on Wednesday July 7, which alleged that Ewes and various citizens from northern Ghana sojourned in the New Edubiase were being intimidated by supporters of the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP).
The said report was republished on WhatsApp platform by one Francis Kanu. Francis was first to be arrested and the Editor was arrested in Accra after a bench warrant was issued by the New Edubiase Magistrate Court.
The two are facing two counts for publishing false news and are to appear before court on October 22, 2020.
Ghana’s law on publication of Fake News
Section 76 of the Electronic Communications Act, 2008 (Act 775) clause (1) A says: “A person who by means of electronic communications service, knowingly sends a communication which is false or misleading and likely to prejudice the efficiency of life saving service or to endanger the safety of any person, … commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not more than [thirty six thousand Ghanaian Cedis] or to a term of imprisonment of not more than five years or both.
(2) A person is taken to know that a communication is false or misleading if that person did not take reasonable steps to find out whether the communication was false, misleading, reckless or fraudulent.”
