Presidency asks GJA and MFWA to convene national talks on hate speech and online abuse

Pinned summary · as of 04:21

The Presidency has written to the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), together with the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), asking them to organise a national conversation on hate speech and abusive material online. The letter is dated 22 September 2026, and it has prompted commentary on who should steer the process and how far any new rules should reach.

What we know

• In a letter dated 22 September 2026, the Presidency instructed the GJA and the MFWA to convene a national engagement of stakeholders on hateful speech, abusive posts online and how people should communicate responsibly on digital platforms. The two bodies were also told to prepare a roadmap for tackling these problems.
• The engagement is expected to draw in the National Media Commission (NMC), police, civil society and traditional media, as well as bloggers and influencers, legal and human-rights experts, other content creators, and the digital platforms themselves.
• Under the 1992 Constitution, Article 162 bars censorship and shields media houses from government interference over their editorial positions. Article 166 creates the NMC, Article 167 gives it a role in handling complaints from and against the media, and Article 172 says no person or authority may direct or control it.
• An opinion column, credited by Citi Newsroom to Samuel Attah-Mensah, argues that the NMC should hold the central role rather than sit alongside other participants, with the GJA and MFWA as key partners. It also says hate speech, incitement, threats, misinformation, defamation and fair criticism must be treated as separate categories, and that government must not end up judging which criticism of itself is acceptable.
• The same column says complaints about media content should go through NMC complaint and mediation channels before police get involved, and that any rules for bloggers and digital creators should look at conduct and impact rather than the speaker's job title. It proposes a six-category national framework covering responsible public and digital communication, running from legitimate criticism up to serious identity-based hate speech.
• The MFWA has repeatedly objected to what it terms the criminalisation of speech, pointing to Section 208 of the Criminal Offences Act, as well as Section 76 in the Electronic Communications Act. It favours civil routes such as rejoinders, NMC processes and defamation suits for reputational harm, and it has voiced concern that proposed laws on misinformation, disinformation and hate speech could define offences so widely that they catch legitimate dissent.
• For comparison, the column points to Kenya, which set up the National Cohesion and Integration Commission to handle hate-speech concerns, and to South Africa, where President Cyril Ramaphosa assented to a hate crimes and hate speech law in 2024.

What's disputed / unconfirmed

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  Citi Newsroom attributes the column to Samuel Attah-Mensah, while Daily Guide Network refers only to a columnist it published. The proposals in it are one writer's opinion and not a position of the Presidency, the GJA, the MFWA or the NMC.
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  Citi Newsroom reports that the column cites Nigeria's heavy reliance on criminal and cybersecurity law as a warning. Daily Guide Network says the writer drew lessons from Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Rwanda, so Rwanda appears only in its account. Neither report gives independent confirmation of these comparisons.
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  Daily Guide Network describes the column's list of outcomes for the process, including a precise national definition, graduated remedies, police guidelines and a permanent NMC-anchored mechanism, as seven outcomes. Citi Newsroom lists several of the same items without a count. Neither report says the GJA, MFWA or Presidency have agreed to them.
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  Daily Guide Network reports that the columnist suggested testing every proposal by asking whether it would still be acceptable if the party one dislikes most were in power. Citi Newsroom does not mention this, and it is one writer's suggestion.

Why it matters for Ghana

Anyone who posts, blogs or runs a page in Ghana could be affected by whatever rules emerge, since the process is meant to cover influencers and content creators as well as newsrooms. Journalists and bloggers will want clarity on whether complaints go to the NMC or to the police, and citizens who criticise public officials online have a stake in how hate speech is defined. Because the MFWA has warned that broad definitions can catch dissent, the design of the roadmap will matter for political debate ahead of future elections.