Ghana’s ranking in the latest press freedom index has dropped 30 places to the 60th position out of 180 countries that were studied.
The massive drop, which is the lowest to be recorded by the country, means that Ghana has moved from ‘satisfactory’ to ‘problematic’ on the situational index.
According to Reporters Without Borders, the association responsible for compiling the rankings, Ghana scored 67,43 which is the third heaviest drop after ranking 66th in 2005 and 67th in 2002.
The report was released to commemorate International Press Freedom Day.
In 2021, Ghana was placed 30th out of 180 countries with a score of 78.67.
On the African continent, the country was ranked 10th behind a number of African countries, including Burkina-Faso which ranked 6th on the continent.
The report comes in the wake of government being criticised for the arrest of persons, including journalists for ‘dissenting’ comments they made.
The arrested persons include; Accra FM’s Bobie Ansah, Power FM’s Oheneba Boamah Bennie, and the Executive Director of the Alliance For Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA), Mensah Thompson who were all slapped with the charge of publication of false news and offensive conduct.
A convenor for #FixTheCountry, Oliver Barker Vormawor, was also arrested for coup comments on his social media pages.
But the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin criticised the arrests.
“If the writings of journalists affect people, they know what to do. Do they have recourse to the law? These are civil matters; they are not criminal. I am not for the moment holding brief for the unprofessional conduct of journalists. There is a cure for it in our current legal regime. The increasing tendency on the part of the police to arrest journalists for what they describe as mistakes is old-school, it’s anachronistic. It is sending this country into the dark ages of media persecution”, Mr. Bagbin declared.
Norway and Sweden were ranked as 1st and 3rd respectively both in 2022 and 2021 as the countries with the freest media. Denmark came second in 2022 but was ranked 4th in 2021.
Iran, Eritrea and Korea were ranked as the countries with the worst press freedom as they occupied the 178th, 179th and 180th positions respectively in the 2022 rankings.
Meanwhile, the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, Sulemana Braimah, says it’s not surprising that Ghana has been ranked low in the 2022 World Press Freedom Index.
