A solemn candlelight protest in Accra honored over 200 Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in the past two years. Activists, diplomats, and journalists gathered in solidarity, with powerful speeches calling out Israel’s war crimes, urging boycotts, and demanding Ghana cut ties with Israel.
Candlelight Protest in Accra: Voices Rise for Murdered Palestinian Journalists
A solemn candlelight protest in Accra honored over 200 Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in the past two years. Activists, diplomats, and journalists gathered in solidarity, with powerful speeches calling out Israel’s war crimes, urging boycotts, and demanding Ghana cut ties with Israel.
By Seyram Fiakeye
In the heart of Accra, hundreds gathered for a solemn yet defiant candlelight protest to honor more than 200 Palestinian journalists murdered by Israel in less than two years. The event, moderated by Comrade Kwesi Pratt, was not simply about mourning – it was about resistance, truth, and demanding action from Ghana and the wider world.
Israel’s War on Truth-Tellers
The most searing words of the night came from a speech read on behalf of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement by Lyla Adwan-Kamara. She declared that Israel is not only waging a war on Palestinians, but also on journalism itself.
“In Gaza, Israel is starving, bombing, and forcibly evicting the people into an ever-tinier sliver of land. Our children, teachers, healers, elders, and truth-tellers are all targeted. Trying to prevent the documentation of genocide – that is why Palestinian journalists are being hunted down.”
She cited the recent Israeli double-tap strike on Nasser Hospital, where at least 20 people, including five journalists, were killed while documenting atrocities. Such tactics, she emphasized, are war crimes in breach of the Geneva Convention.
Adwan-Kamara placed Israel’s crimes in stark historical context:
69 journalists killed in WWII (6 years).
63 journalists killed in Vietnam (20 years).
191–270 journalists killed in Palestine in less than two years.
She invoked the assassination of Anas al-Sharif, a Palestinian journalist murdered in July after being falsely branded a Hamas operative. He was bombed in his media tent alongside colleagues.
“This is an attack on journalism everywhere. If Israel can declare you a terrorist, kill you in your car, bomb you in your press vest, and get away with it – then every journalist is at risk. What happens to Palestinians can happen to you.”