General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Dr. Justice Yankson says death threats on media practitioners is an attack on the citizenry and the state, hence must be condemned.

“We all have that right to comment on issues, to give our opinions, and we should be at liberty to do all that without threats coming towards anybody.

“Especially when it is geared towards the fourth estate of the realm, one attack on a journalist is a big attack on a whole institution, an attack on the citizenry and the state at large,” he stated.

Speaking to Super Morning Show host Kojo Yankson Monday, Dr. Yankson was of the view that these death threats may be coming from party foot soldiers and not party executives.

He, however, believes the influence of political functionaries fosters such despicable acts as they fail to reprimand culprits.

“The unfortunate thing is this political leadership that benefits from such activities refuse to condemn them. They refuse to bring them out and sometimes, they shield them. By the time we realise, the whole system will begin to degenerate into chaos.”

His comments follow death threats received by freelance investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni after writing an opinion piece on the just-ended 2020 general elections.

The article headlined, ‘ERRORtoral Commission and Akufo-Addo’s coup d’état’, discussed the anomalies with the Techiman South parliamentary results and the non-participation of the people of Santrokfi, Akpafu, Lolobi and Likpe (SALL) areas in the voting process.

According to Manasseh Azuri, although he has contacted some top police officials, he will formally report the threat and submit the full content of the email he received to the police.

But Dr Justice Yankson says the law enforcement agencies must act swiftly to address the issue in order to restore confidence.

“I think that the IGP, the intelligence agencies, those who are trained in Cybersecurity should put their acts together and fish out the perpetrators of these actions. We should not play with these things.

“These threats may sound like ‘simple matters’ but the results, when they come, we begin to cry as a nation.”