Demo met with military helicopters

The Committee for Joint Action, CJA, has defied a court injunction secured by the police in Tamale to stop a planned demonstration in the Northern Regional capital.

The protest which started at 7:30 am was flanked by an assemblage of over thirty thousand people who believed the government had not done enough to alleviate poverty in the country.

Reports from Joy FM’s correspondent Mahama Shaibu said there had been military helicopters hovering around the Jubilee Park where the protesters had been meeting after a march through some major streets of the city.

For now there has been no report of violence but officials say the appearance of the military helicopter nearly caused a stair in a programme which was rather thought to be a peaceful expression of a constitutional right.

The regional police on Friday secured a court injunction against the demonstration citing inadequate men to provide adequate protection for the protestors.

The CJA yesterday vowed to go ahead with the demonstration insisting that they police had not served them with any court injunction.

However, the leadership of the demonstration aimed at registering the people’s discomfort with living conditions and general hardship in the society, have descried the police action as unnecessary and useless confrontation.

According to Mr. Kwasi Pratt Junior, who spoke to Joy News, the “confrontation that the police are organising is absolutely useless and needless and they must get this very, very clear; nothing is going to stop this demonstration tomorrow.

“We are insisting on our constitutional, legal and democratic right, look the CJA is not a guerrilla movement and we are not carrying AK47 rifles, we are organising a peaceful demonstration; dancing to music and carrying placards on the streets. What danger does that present to anybody?”

The CJA had earlier last Friday issued a statement explaining efforts it had made to comply with statutory public order demands and said the police had exhibited bad faith in all this.

A similar protest at the close of 2007, brought the group and the police in Accra into a lengthy tussle before the event came off. Meanwhile similar protests marches have been planned for Cape Coast and Sekondi by the CJA.