The Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled (GSPD) has cautioned Shatta Wale, a Ghanaian musician, to desist from using a person’s disability to mock him.
A statement issued by the GSPD and signed by Mr Matthew Annor Kodom, National President, said his organisation had seen a video circulating on social media where Shatta Wale mocks Stonebouy, his colleague musician with disability.
In the said video, Shatta Wale said, “You are a bad person that is why God made you a disabled person, you are a disabled person don’t try and fight an able person.”
The GSPD said by the statement Shatta Wale was trying to say that God made all persons with disabilities that way because they were bad.
The statement said: “We want to remind Shatta Wale that a section of his own fans are persons with disabilities.”
It said the GSPD took exception to this statement and asked Shatta Wale to retract the statement, remove the video from social media and apologise to all persons with disability and all Ghanaians.
The GSPD reiterated that being a person with disability did not mean “you are cursed, or God is punishing you.”
Referencing the Disability Act 715, the GSPD said, using a person’s disability to mock him or her or making derogatory remarks about a person’s disability is a punishable offence.
The statement said such primitive utterance should not have come from a high-profile personality like Shatta Wale, condemning the act as highly irresponsible.
The GSPD advised the public to embrace persons with disabilities and be empathetic towards them. “Disability does not mean a person is cursed or is being punished by God,” it reiterated.
GNA
HA/CA
15 April 2024
