The Court of Justice of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS [9] on May 16 ordered the government of Ghana to pay a collective $75,000 in damages to 30 members of the Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF) over their prolonged and unlawful detention. The court, based in Lagos, Nigeria, found that Ghanaian authorities violated the applicants' human rights by detaining them for extended periods—some for over a year—without trial or due process. The judges noted that both Ghana's constitution and Article 6 of the African Charter on Human & Peoples' Rights require detainees to be presented in court within 48 hours. The 30 HSGF members were arrested on May 8, 2019, under Ghana's 1976 Prohibited Organizations Decree, which outlaws groups deemed a threat to national security. (Punch [12])
The Homeland Study Group Foundation advocates for the independence of Western Togoland [10], an ethnically distinct region that was separated from what became the adjoining nation of Togo at the end of the colonial era and attached to Ghana. The HSGF holds that the 1956 plebiscite for union with Ghana was illegitimate because Togoland, homeland of the Ewe [13] people, was then divided between the French-held east (contemporary Togo) and the British-held west.
The ECOWAS Court of Justice rejected Ghana's argument that the detentions were justified by national security concerns. It also rejected the applicants' argument that Ghana lacked jurisdiction over the Western Togoland region because it had been denied self-determination. (DL News [14])
Six members of the more militant Western Togoland Restoration Front (WTRF) were given prison terms in June 2023 in relation to armed roadblocks that WTRF followers erected through the region in late 2020. (GBC Ghana [15])
