Media practitioners have been advised to be responsible in their reportage in order to promote peace, before, during and after the December general elections.
Dr Frank Mackay Anim-Appiah, Executive Director of the Ghana Centre of Pen International said at the 31st celebration of PEN International Day of the Imprisoned Writer in Accra on Thursday.
He noted that some journalists and writers have woefully performed irresponsibly by allowing disparaging and provocative remarks to fly about freely, while aggressive words were also used in writing.
"Some media practitioners and writers have become increasingly intolerant, bitter…creative flame once kindled the profession is languishing fast because of monetary inducement", he said.
He said media practitioners should bear in mind that insults, falsehood, unfairness and untruths were all insidious forms of violence which must be avoided in order to ensure peace before and after the December general elections.
PEN International Day of the Imprisoned Writer has been set aside to commemorate writers and journalists, who have been attacked, arrested, detained, tortured or even killed or died in prison just for practice of their profession.
Established in 1960, PEN's Writers in Prison Committee monitors human right abuses committed against writers and journalists worldwide and campaigns on their behalf.
Dr Frank Mackay revealed that, many media practitioners and writers across the world had been sent to prison while others had been killed for expressing their opinions and the Africa continent is no exception.
He said, media practitioners in Somalia had suffered most and in 2012 alone, as many as 18 writers and journalists had been killed.
"Despite the breakthrough by a number of African countries in restoring civil rule, the constitutions of these new democracies can only be said to be seeing some light of the day if core institutions such as free and impartial judiciary, adherence to the rule of law, due process in the courts and a free and unfettered press, are overhauled", he advised.
In his keynotes address, Professor Atukwei Okai, the General Secretary of the Pan African Writers Association said freedom of expression was a basic human right which every individual should not be denied off.
He said thinking and speaking moved together as one could not speak without thinking, saying people must therefore be allowed to think freely and express their views on matters that were of interest to them without any hindrance.
He also urged the youth to empower themselves through reading in order to aspire higher in society, adding that they should cultivate the habit of questioning whatever they did not understand their environment without having the feeling of inferiority complex.
The President of the Ghana Centre for PEN International, Alhaji Haruna Attah said, with the repeal of the Newspaper Licensing Law and abrogation of the Criminal Libel section of the criminal code of Ghana, freedoms of the media and expression have been fully respected with no writers in prison.