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TIME FOR A NEW HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION

Jan 06, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Guyana needs a new human rights association. The present Guyana Human Rights Association has served its purpose. It should be thanked for its efforts, be awarded a medal of some sort and then put out to pasture.
In its place should be born a new organization that is broad-based and genuine committed to working with rather than against the government to strengthen human rights reforms.
The new body should seek countrywide recognition and should demonstrate that it is committed to a non-partisan stand which means it has to be consistent in addressing all manner of human rights across Guyana.
The urgency of the need for such a human rights grouping is best illustrated by the almost total silence of the local human rights community over some recent incidents in which the police seem to using detention as a means of punishment.
A member of the local media and a social activist were thrown into the lockups a few weeks ago over a matter for which there can hardly be any reason not to offer station bail.
The police, instead of allowing these men their liberty or instead of bringing them before the courts in the shortest possible time, chose instead to detain them in the lockups. Not a word was issued by the human rights community over this flagrant violation of the liberty of these persons.
Then not long after a local entertainer was picked up by police and also thrown into the lockups where he spent the Christmas holidays. The police later admitted that it was a case of mistaken identity. But how can the police in a small society like Guyana, make such a mistake when the individual is well-known.
Even if there were many persons who go under the pseudonym “Jumbie”, the police ought to have known that the person they arrested was a popular entertainer and therefore ought to have released him once it was obvious that it was the wrong “Jumbie” that was arrested.
The police are not convincing in their explanation of the wrongful detention of this man, and it is hoped that the individual will contact the Police Complaints Authority and file a complaint so that his unlawful detention can be investigated.
If the wrong man was arrested, then why did it take so long for the mistake to be identified? This has to be a case of high-class incompetence and one will hope that the Police Complaints Authority which can summon its own investigation into this matter will do so and have the errant parties face appropriate and strong disciplinary action.
It is also hoped that the two incidents referred to do not indicate a trend of the police using detention as a means of punishment of persons because of personal or political disputes.
There has been speculation in some quarters that the unlawful detention of the men was as a result of personal feuds in the case of the arrest of the local entertainer, and in the case of the first incident, as a means to teach the men a lesson.
One can only hope that this is not the case because the role of the police is not to administer punishment or lawful sanction to anyone; that is the role of the courts.
In order to guard against such abuses, what is needed is a vibrant human rights association, one that has the resources to be able to respond, if not to all breaches of human rights, at least to those which concern the restriction of the liberty of subjects and those involving personal injury or harm to persons in police custody.
It is time for such a body to be constituted.
There are reputable and respectable men and women in Guyana who can come together to form such a body, one that will enjoy much greater credibility that the present Guyana Human Rights Association which has done fair work over the years but which has clearly run out of the energy to continue to deal with the many allegations of human rights abuses in Guyana.
The gauntlet is therefore thrown out to those with a special interest in defending and promoting human rights. The formation of the new human rights body does not necessarily have to entail an antagonistic approach towards the authorities but it does require an uncompromising stance when it comes to cases where there is flagrant violation of the rights of citizens.

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