The Member of Parliament for Kumbungu Ras Mubarak has slammed the Foreign Affairs Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, for ‘desecrating’ the national flag.
According to Mr. Mubarak, he will initiate processes towards summoning Ayorkor Botchway to the House over her treatment of the country’s flag.
The minister was seen in a widely circulated picture on Social Media in the company of Ghana’s Ambassador to China and other Chinese officials cutting into a national flag designed material at an event in China.
But Mr. Mubarak is accusing the minister of mutilating the national flag; an offence he argues carries a punishment of imprisonment or a fine according to Ghana’s laws.
Speaking to Starr News, the Kumbungu MP said he will demand answers from the minister in parliament for her action.
“What the Minister of Foreign Affairs, our Ambassador in China and other staff of the Ministry did in the attached photo constitutes mutilation of the national flag and is in violation of Section 184 of Ghana’s Criminal Offences Act 29 (1960), and the Flag And Arms Protection Act of 1959”, Mr Mubarak said.
He added that “whoever does any act or utters any words or publishes any writing with intent to insult or bring into contempt or ridicule the official national flag or emblem of Ghana or any representation or pictorial reproduction thereof is guilty of misdemeanor.”
“In many jurisdictions, the Minister would have been in serious trouble for mutating or desecrating our national flag in public. In the US for instance, ‘whoever knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or trampled upon any flag of the United States shall be fined or imprisoned for not more than a year or both’.”
“The Attorney General may not be interested in prosecuting her colleague Minister. In view of this I intend to bring a half hour motion in parliament with the view to having the Minister answer for her actions.
“Going forward, Section 184 of Act 29, needs to be amended. We have to replace the phrase ‘with intent to’ with the word ‘knowingly’. Ghana’s Chief Diplomat should never be seen cutting into our flag,” he said.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM
