Home »

[bana2166]

Bahamas Human Rights Record Reviewed

By Tameka Lundy

Hostility increased towards Haitian immigrants in The Bahamas in 2005, a newly released report on the state of the world?s human rights revealed this week.

Haitians account for the majority of illegal immigrants residing in The Bahamas in what officials have come to classify as a pivotal national security challenge.

According to the international human rights watch group, Amnesty International, continued reports of police brutality, abuses against asylum seekers and hostility towards Haitian immigrants are blights on the human rights record of The Bahamas.

In the main, the assessment of events that happened in 2005, reported that it was a year of contradictions in which signs of hope for human rights were undermined through the deception and failed promises of powerful governments.

The Amnesty report once again referred to the treatment of detainees at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre, an issue that has been under intense international scrutiny in recent times.

Detained asylum seekers and migrants, the majority of them black Haitian nationals, were held in harsh conditions and reportedly ill treated, AI said.

"There were continued reports of abuses against asylum seekers and other detainees at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre," said the report. "Inmates were reportedly beaten and received inadequate medical attention, food and water. Asylum seekers were forcibly returned to countries including Cuba and Haiti without access to a full and fair determination procedure."

However, government officials have continued to strenuously deny any such reports of abuse at the centre.

The report continued: "Hostility increased towards Haitian immigrants, unofficially estimated at 60,000 out of a population of 300,000. In 2005, according to the Department of Immigration, 5,543 irregular immigrants ? 4,504 from Haiti ? were forcibly returned to their countries of origin."

At another time, Amnesty had called for the government to immediately remove members of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force who are deployed to the external perimeter of the facility amid serious allegations of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Defence Force officers were alleged to have severely beaten and mistreated asylum seekers and other migrants who are held at the centre, but a police investigation into particular alleged incidents exposed in an Amnesty report substantiated none of the claims.

Additionally, continued reports of police brutality were also highlighted, particularly the riot that occurred in Nassau Village last January.

In May, AI reportedly sent a police expert to provide human rights training to members of the Royal Bahamas Police Force.

Amnesty noted that while death sentenced continued to be imposed in 2005, no executions were carried out. At the end of 2005, there were at least 39 prisoners on death row. Although the report mentioned 12 prisoners who staged a hunger strike to protest their inhumane conditions, it pointed out that in October a new prison building was commissioned for completion in 2007.