Arise Ghana To Protest Over Delayed Assent to Anti-gay Bill

Pressure group Arise Ghana has threatened to hit the streets if President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo holds onto his entrenched stance against assenting to the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill known as the Anti-LGBTQ bill.

The group notes that the time-tested Ghanaian values are under the looming threat of the increasing and growing trend of LGBTQI+ with the Anti-LGBTQ bill anticipated to be the appropriate panacea to steer it off.

“Despite the forth and back, the Parliament of Ghana through a bipartisan approach unanimously passed the Bill for a Presidential assent to bring into force a law for the promotion of human sexual rights and family values which are cardinal to our survival as a sovereign secular nation.

“Unfortunately, President Akufo-Addo who has demonstrated all along his abhorrence for the Bill has resorted to some unfounded legal gymnastics in an attempt not to assent the Bill into law. As far as we know, the Supreme Court is clothed with the responsibility to interpret laws not proposed legislation as contained in the Bill which is not yet law.

“Under the circumstance, the least the President can do is to carry out his constitutionally-mandated duty of assenting to the Bill and leave the legality or otherwise of the Bill to the Supreme Court to determine,” it said in a statement on March 5.

The Group led by its convenor, Rex Omar is threatening to protest against the President and his government.

“Arise Ghana hereby serves notice that we shall mobilise the good people of Ghana to march and protest on the streets of Ghana to compel the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia Government to pass this law in the supreme interest of the nation as we have already declared March 2024 as a month of Advocacy, Activism and Protestation.”

Ghana’s Parliament on February 28, 2024, passed the Anti-LGBTQ bill after its initiation in 2021 by eight legislators.

On March 4, President Akufo-Addo served notice about his intention to defer assent until a civil action against the bill in the Supreme Court is resolved.

Read the full statement here: ARISEGHANA-STATEMENT-ON-THE-DELAY-IN-THE-PRESIDENTIAL-ASSENT-TO-THE-LGBTQI-BILL