Ghana’s Speaker of Parliament Prof Mike Oquaye has said Amnesty International (AI) may soon start pushing for the legalisation of bestiality in Ghana judging from the way the rights advocacy group has been campaigning for the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the abolishment of the death penalty in the name of human rights.
Prof Oquaye expressed the fear when Amnesty international visited Ghana’s parliament with a call on the legislature to repeal capital punishment from its statutes.
According to the Advocator Adviser to Amnesty International, Oluwatosin Popoola, the death penalty has not been and is not a deterrent enough to crime in the country and the world at large.
Speaking at the courtesy call on the Speaker on Tuesday 11 July, 2017, Mr Popoola said 105 countries have so far signed to join the campaign for the abolition of the death penalty.
“We are here to urge you and parliament to take steps to abolish the death penalty in existing laws while we wait for the constitutional process to fully abolish this horrible punishment. Last year, a delegation from Amnesty International conducted research in Ghana on the use of the death penalty. We visited the death row section in the Nsawam Prison and tomorrow by God’s grace we will be launching our report on our observations and we are here to not only express our concerns but to share advance copies of the report with you and we hope to have a constructive discussion with you,” Mr Popoola said.
In response, Prof Oquaye questioned why a murderer’s right to life should be protected when he or she takes another’s from them.
He said: “It takes persuasion for people to totally abandon matters relating to aims of punishment. In terms of that which is correct, that which is a deterrent…and also the juxtaposition of rights, the murderer has a right to life but the victim had a right to life in the first place and taken away by the murderer. Why should the murderer insist on his right to life and society protects his/her right to life when he violently abuses and takes away unilaterally without justification the life of another? I’m throwing these at you because you said you want to have a discussion with us and definitely these are the issues that will come out of any attempt to formally abolish the death penalty.”
The Speaker noted that on the issue of human rights, if care is not taken, Amnesty International will make another future request for the country to accept homosexuality since it is an acceptable practice in some countries.
He said: “The way human rights conceptualisations are going these days, if we don’t take care, before we realise very soon everything has become human rights, even the right to have sex with animals…following what Tony Blair said, regarding which I personally wrote him a letter that if we did not go the homosexual way it was going to affect their aid to us. Honestly, in view of this, we Africans should have a concern about certain things that may appear merely intellectual but it becomes very practical. Is Amnesty International going to tell us many countries are doing that so you too now have to do homosexuality? You too have to do bestiality because it’s becoming a human rights issue in some countries and the right to do homosexuality is also becoming a human right? The right for a human being to sleep with an animal is becoming a human right. We are tired of some of these things and we must be frank about it. …I think these
Thank you Mr speaker, in fact each people we need in our country. We need Franklin and just people in our leadership and not fraudsters. Exodus 23:1&2, let us read and stand on it to abolish this nonsense
Mr Speaker God bless you and give you courage. majority of Ghanaians share the same view with you.
Speaker you are a great leader,we should poke our voice on top of this issues.Everything obnoxious is becoming right.Please, is the amnesty international the dictator of a country’s how to do their things?.
The professor doesn’t seem intelligent enough.
And am very sure u consider yourself very intelligent, right? Well, that’s the only way u wld agree to such So call “urges”. Or perhaps u yourself r a practitioner of homosexuality or even worse bestiality.
Am not a fun of the right hounerable speaker but in fact, i love you on this one.
Am with u Mr speaker, the African has his way of life in which rights of individuals were protected. So it doesn’t lie in the mouth of amnesty international to define our way of life. U are blessed with wisdom. Long live Mr speaker
Mr. Speaker should come again. If someone committed murder and the whole society says it is out of oder, and we condemn it why then do we use same act of taking life to punish the man who took life. I think those who made that legislation did it over their heads rather used their hearts. And Mr. Speaker is still using his heart in his reaction now. We lead people with our head not our hearts.