Osahen Urges Mahama to Pardon Jailed TikToker

Minority Leader Osahen Alexander Afenyo-Markin has asked President John Dramani Mahama to forgive and pardon Camila Alhassan, the 43-year-old TikToker serving a one-year prison sentence with hard labour for offensive conduct.

Osahen Afenyo-Markin made the appeal at the 30th Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Media Awards in Accra on Saturday, November 7, 2026, saying the case raised serious concerns about how speech-related offences are handled in Ghana.

“I urge the President to consider extending clemency to her,” Afenyo-Markin said, as he called for stronger protection of freedom of expression.

Afenyo-Markin did not stop at the pardon appeal. He used the platform to warn against using criminal law to silence citizens and journalists.

He called for the repeal of Section 208 of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), and Section 76 of the Electronic Communications Act, 2008 (Act 775), arguing that the two provisions have no place in Ghana’s democracy.

Afenyo-Markin said disagreements, criticism, satire, political comments and even honest mistakes should not become the basis for criminal prosecution and imprisonment.

The Minority Leader, however, made it clear that freedom of expression is not a licence for irresponsibility.

“We do not defend lies. We do not defend hate speech. We do not defend incitement. We do not defend reckless publications that destroy reputations, endanger lives or undermine public peace,” he said.

 

Afenyo-Markin argued that defamation, libel and false publications should be handled through civil remedies such as retractions, apologies and compensation, rather than criminal prosecution.

“The answer to bad speech must not always be the criminal law. The answer to falsehood must be truth. The answer to propaganda must be fact,” he said.

He also cautioned against the use of expensive lawsuits to intimidate journalists and citizens, warning that justice must never become a tool for silencing critics.

“We will not accept a system in which the powerful use burdensome lawsuits not to protect their reputation, but to bankrupt journalists, exhaust editors and frighten citizens into silence,” he added.

TikToker Camila Alhassan was sentenced by an Accra Circuit Court on July 16, 2026, after she pleaded guilty to offensive conduct conducive to a breach of the peace.

Her conviction followed TikTok videos she posted between June 30 and July 5, 2026. In the videos, she claimed that President Mahama had sacrificed 32 cows to win the 2024 general elections. She also alleged that the government’s distribution of sanitary pads to victims of the June 29, 2026 floods was meant to hide the alleged sacrifices.

The prosecution said she made offensive and derogatory remarks about the President and the First Lady, Lordina Mahama, which could provoke a breach of the peace.

Her lawyer, Kwadwo Gyamfi-Bonsu, said the court convicted her only on the offensive conduct charge under Section 207 because it lacked jurisdiction to determine the false news charge under Section 208.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) criticised her arrest and prosecution, describing the case as part of a worrying pattern of the “creeping criminalisation of speech” in Ghana.

The Minority Leader’s appeal for a pardon, and his call for law reform, have renewed the public debate over the balance between free speech and the responsibility of social media users to avoid abusive, threatening or unsubstantiated content.