A security analyst believes sanctions on some police officers following their much-criticised response to protests at the Islamic Senior High School were wrong.
Speaking on The Big Issue, the President of the Institute for Security, Disaster and Emergency Studies, Dr. Ishmael Norman, said the officers were only following due process.
“Having followed the order given by their superior officers, you cannot interdict them,” Dr. Norman argued.
He noted further that the failings of the police during the protest on June 13 should be laid at the feet of the Inspector General of Police.
“The onus is on him [the IGP] to make sure that we have alternative approaches to public disturbances,” Dr. Norman said.
The Ghana Police Service removed its Deputy Ashanti Regional Commander, DCOP Kwasi Akomeah Apraku, following the incident.
DCOP Apraku was also interdicted together with two other senior officers.
Dr. Norman argued further that police should be provided with alternative protocols for crowd control because police officers generally do what they are trained to do.
Per his assessment, the police manual doesn’t differentiate between the age or gender of protestors.
“So it is the duty of the IGP to change the training manual… if students are in involved, the approach should be different… If you read the manual, you will see that they didn’t deviate from the manual,” he added.
The school’s students were protesting to demand speed ramps to prevent knockdowns from speeding vehicles in front of their school.
About 32 students from Islamic Senior High School were hospitalised after they were met with police action that included the use of tear gas.
Various probes are ongoing to determine the facts of what happened on the day of the protest.
