#OccupyJulorBiHouse: Traders wail, lament as they accuse police of seizing their products

It was a devastating scene seeing some traders at the 37 Station area wailing and lamenting over what they say are the actions of some policemen that has left them without their products.

According to some of these female traders, who were captured in a video shared by UTV, they say the men seized their wares for no reasons at all.

Seen alongside Oliver Barker-Vormawor, the leader of Democracy Hub, a youth activist group that is leading a three-day protest against the government of Ghana’s handling of economic hardships, the women vented out their frustrations about how difficult things have been for them in the country.

“We are suffering. They took away all the water I had on my head… we have done nothing. We did nothing to them,” the women are heard lamenting.

Background

On Day 1 (September 21) of the #OccupyJulorbiHouse protests by the Democracy Hub, a group of young activists; police illegally rounded up 49 protesters who were marching to demand action on prevailing economic crisis and corruption.

The illegal arrests, especially how they were conducted by the police triggered harsh criticism of impeding the constitutional right to protest and deploying highhandedness on the part of police.

Police sent the detainees to the regional headquarters before splitting them up to about eight police stations dotted across the capital, even as colleague protesters and lawyers worked to secure bail for the illegally detained persons.

In this process, other journalists and protesters who massed up, especially at the Accra Regional Command encountered some amount of police violence including shoving, forced detention, seizure of phones, and in the case of other physical assault.

In their first of two statements on the day, police said the illegal arrests were justified because protesters were defying a court injunction served on them, which process they denied had been properly served.

The second statement addressed the purported arrest of a BBC journalist and his cameraman, which reportage they dismissed as untrue.

By the close of the day, almost all illegally detained protesters per GhanaWeb checks had been released from illegal detention on bail, it remains to be seen whether Day Two of the three-day protest targeting the seat of government, the Jubilee House, will come off today (September 22, 2023).

Street vendors near the 37 Trotro station, where #OccupyJulorbiHouse demonstrators are gathering, accuse the police of seizing products intended for sale.#UTVGhana pic.twitter.com/3UKXNMGtGU

— UTV Ghana (@utvghana) September 22, 2023

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