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The Greater Accra Market Women�s Association has strongly condemned former President J. J Rawlings describing his justification of the public flogging of naked market women during the June 4, 1979 uprising as erroneous. The former president of Ghana in an address to students at the University of Ghana on Friday, stated that he tolerated the public flogging of women because some of them threw urine at his soldiers. He added that he ordered the destruction of the Makola Market at the time because he needed to redirect the anger of the soldiers away from the market women. Mr. Rawlings stated that inasmuch as he was pained by the flogging of the women, he could not have stopped it because the market women were disrespectful towards the men in green uniform hence they incurred the wrath of the soldiers. In an interview with Citi News, the president of the market women association, Mercy Needjane, said she does not believe market women at the time did any of the things claimed by the former President to be treated with such cruelty. �I don�t think women can throw urine on soldiers, I don�t think that if goods are abundant someone will do �kalabule�. I think if somebody did something wrong there is a way of punishing the person,� Needjane said. �I don�t side with the flogging of naked women and I don�t think if someone is disrespectful the punishment is flogging. �