‘It is rubbish’ – Angry Prof Kwesi Aning reacts to US Human Rights Report on Ghana

Security expert, Professor Kwesi Aning, has responded harshly to the demining report issued by the United States Department on human rights in Ghana.

In its 2021 Human Rights Report on Ghana issued on April 26, 2022, the State Department among other things accused the government of Ghana and agencies of the state of engaging in arbitrary human rights abuses including unlawful and extrajudicial killings.

But reacting to the report in an interview with TV3, Prof. Kwesi Aning who is the Director of the Faculty of Academic Affairs & Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPKTC) said such a report that undermines the sovereignty of Ghana should be treated with contempt.

“We don’t need the State Department to tell what we are doing right or wrong. So I think we should dismiss this report with the contempt that it deserves. I think after all these years of independence we should be bold and tell them that this not right,” he said.

He had earlier tagged the report as being “rubbish” emphasizing that Ghanaian experts and scholars could equally produce a damning report about the human rights abuses being recorded in the United States which is touted as a model for democracy and respect for human rights.

“Were you to put 20 Ghanaian scholars and human right activists together we can write a worst report about the United States. So this report to me is rubbish and I think it should be treated with the contempt that it deserves. After almost 62 years of independence, we can write our own report.”

“We have a vibrant Civil society, we have a Parliament irrespective of its problems or weaknesses, we have a judiciary that we can criticize. A whole Minister made suggestions about how judicial decisions can lead to certain problems,” he noted.