Shalimar Abbuisi, the spokesperson of ‘The New Force’ political movement, has spoken out for the first time following her deportation by the Ghana Immigration Service.
Speaking in an interview on JoyNews, on Friday, January 12, 2024, accused the Ghana Immigration Service of deporting her for no reason.
She said that while she was in the custody of officers, they were only interested in telling her who the person behind the man in the mask campaign was which she refused.
“… I’ve been active in Ghana in the media space. Not just in Ghana, but I’ve been active in the media space for some time. Been travelling back and forth, been involved in charity work and humanitarian work in Ghana for some time.
“And after the video came out with me as the spokesperson for the new force, I got a call from immigration to come to their headquarters for some questions. So, I went willingly. When they invited me a couple of days after I went, they started to ask me all kinds of questions about my residence permit, which I’ve been travelling with back and forth for years.
“It’s been recently extended by another immigration officer. It was obtained through an official immigration officer, and I never had any problems with it. So they started to question me about the permit. They asked me about certain documents that I had never seen before, and they asked me questions about the new force. So, I was very confused about why I was there. And then eventually, after some hours of questioning, they told me I had to stay there overnight,” she narrated.
The new forces spokesperson went on to share her experiences while in the custody of the immigration service.
She said that there were a lot of people who were being kept in the cell of the service under very poor conditions.
According to her, some of the people she met there had been in the cell for months without being taken through the required legal process.
“So, I stayed in the cell overnight at immigration. And the things that I’ve seen there were just. I don’t have words for it. It was very shocking. There were so many people there. I think more than 15 people from all different nationalities, Africans, Arabs, Asian people. And it was shocking to see that some of them were already there for nine months without a hearing, without a lawyer, without anything, and in just inhumane circumstances.
“Keep in mind, it was men and women together in the same cell. Some of them didn’t even have the chance to make a phone call. They were stuck there for months. Nobody to call, no lawyer, no counsel, sharing mattresses. It was baffling, the things that I’ve seen there,” she said.
She added that the immigration service took her to the National Investigation Bureau (NIB), where she was told she was under arrest without any charges being levelled against her.
“Then the next morning, I was transferred to NIB. I didn’t know where I was going. They just took me out of the cell. Then they transferred me somewhere. I didn’t know where I was going, so I was just being pushed in a van and they took me somewhere after I found out I was at NIB. And that is where they told me I’m under arrest. I still didn’t know what exactly for at that moment because there were no official charges. So, yeah, that’s how it went.”
Abbiusi said that she spent about six days at the immigration cell and one day at the NIB cell with all forms of human rights violation before her release after the court granted her bail.
After her re-arrest, she spent one day in a cell at the NIB before being deported.
Shalimar Abbiusi, a Belgian national who gained popularity as spokesperson of the New Force movement was arrested and put before a court by the Ghana Immigration Service for allegedly using false declaration to obtain a resident permit.
The state on Tuesday, December 19, 2023, dropped the charges against her after which she was subsequently rearrested and deported from the country.
