The Member of Parliament for Kumbungu, Ras Mubarak has raised legal concerns over the Foreign Affairs Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway’s supervision of the cutting of the Ghana flag in China.
The minister was sighted in a photo with other officials of the Ministry and a Chinese, cutting the Ghana flag during a ceremony to officially open Ghana’s new consul in Guangzhou, China.
According to Ras Mubarak, the singular action of cutting the flag with a pair of scissors goes against the country’s laws which forbids anyone from undertaking such acts.
He said that these acts have the tendency of ridiculing the official national flag or emblem of Ghana.
“What the Minister for Foreign Affairs, our Ambassador in China and other staff of the Ministry did in the attached photo constitutes mutilation of the National Flag,” he said.
In a Facebook post, Ras Mubarak said, “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,” Ras Mubarak said.
He mentioned that he will file a motion in parliament on the matter to have the minister answer for her actions.
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, he said.
The former Chief Executive Officer for the National Youth Authority (NYA) further proposed an amendment to the Criminal Offences Act, stressing that the Minister “should never be seen cutting into our flag.”
Read his post below:
