Reduce 10-day jail term for Kuranchie -Editor's forum appeals
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In a petition, the EFG pleaded with the acting Director of the Complaints Unit of the Judicial Service to use his good offices to intercede on humanitarian grounds on Mr Kuranchie’s behalf.
“We are also aware that the panel probably could have given our colleague a harsher sentence but we believe that the lordships only sought to send out a strong caution.
Thus, respectfully, this petition seeks to plead with the panel through your office to consider reducing the sentence on humanitarian grounds”, the petition signed by the Chairperson of the Editors Forum, Ghana, Ms Ajoa Yeboah-Afari, said.
It said the editors were convinced that the intended effect, the warning to the media of the importance of knowing where to draw the line in writing, had already been achieved.
The EFG said it was the forum’s belief that the media family took the warning to heart as soon as the sentence was pronounced on Tuesday, July 2, 2013.
“We also believe that Mr Kuranchie, too, has learnt his lesson,” it said.
The EFG is a group of editors, present and past, senior journalists and media educators.
Affiliated to the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), the EFG was founded in 2005, with sponsorship from the UNDP under its Peace and Governance Programme.
“As a body which has long campaigned for responsible journalism, we would be the first to agree to the need for the media to always bear in mind circumspection in exercising media freedom and the need for respect for the panel,” the petition said.
The petition was copied to the Her Ladyship the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina T. Wood; Chairman of the National Media Commission, Mr Kabral Blay-Amihere; President of the GJA, Mr Affail Monney, and the President of the Private Newspapers Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG), Mrs Gina Blay.
Daily Graphic/Ghana