The Tribune

ATTORNEY and activist Fred Smith, QC, has written a letter to Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade requesting a meeting with the top police officer to put an end to “intimidating” actions by government officials.

In the letter, which was sent to The Tribune, Mr Smith also questioned the government’s “sudden interest in violence and harassment claims following a report to a regional human rights committee”.

“Dear commissioner,” said Mr Smith in his open letter, “first of all, I would like to thank you for the speed and urgency with which the Royal Bahamas Police Force responded to news that Save The Bays (STB) has reported certain serious threats to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR) at the OAS in Washington, DC.

“Within days of the IACHR contacting the government regarding our case, senior officers made efforts to interview all STB members who had reported fearing for their lives and safety as a result of the environmental advocacy work we do across The Bahamas.

“Unfortunately, the approach taken by the RBPF in seeking to address this matter has – no doubt inadvertently – caused considerable concern among our board and membership. I would hereby like to respectfully request that officers cease and desist from seeking out individual members at their homes or places of work in an effort to ask them ‘some questions.’

“Our petition to the IACHR states explicitly that well-placed sources who raised the alarm over the danger to our lives and safety also claimed some government officials are themselves part of the threat.

“As I am sure you can appreciate given this alarming context, some of our already terrified members therefore experienced an increased level of anxiety and felt extremely intimidated when approached, on an individual basis, by police officers. In certain instances, it was as if they were to be arrested, rather than treated as the victims, and it was certainly embarrassing and disconcerting that these ‘visits’ were made in public and at some places of work.

“All of our members are legally represented and my firm initiated a written complaint in February 2015. We are all also very high profile public figures. Each of us is well known to your office. We can be contacted by telephone or email, or through our attorneys and civil arrangements could have been made for meetings or discussions, as was done by Assistant Commissioner Seymour’s team in Grand Bahama with respect to Joseph Darville and myself.

“I am the attorney of record for STB members who submitted the petition to the IACHR and I have advised them to decline discussing the matter in any way unless myself or an authorised member of my legal team is present. Specifically, concern has been raised that any individual police interviews could be used by the aforementioned as an opportunity to attempt to compel STB members to reveal the names of our sources – sources who, we are convinced, will face serious personal danger if their identity comes to light.

“STB is in no way accusing you, commissioner, or any member of your senior command of having such intentions; nevertheless, under the circumstances, I believe you will agree that the anxiety felt by our members it is quite reasonable and understandable.

“I therefore take this opportunity to respectfully suggest that in the interests of all concerned, the best way forward would be to arrange a meeting between yourself and the STB legal team and counsel on our behalf in the Supreme Court civil action, where any questions the police may have can be dealt with thoroughly and comprehensively. We are prepared to provide any further documentary evidence or provide the documentary evidence already provided, once again.

“At the same time however, I must express a certain level of bafflement at the RBPF’s sudden desire to ask us any questions at all, given that STB has made several official reports to the police going back to February 2015 and provided voluminous evidence of a sustained campaign of harassment, intimidation, hate speech, death threats, arson, violence and a conspiracy to seriously harm or kill our members, much of which has been frequently publicly expressed, as this is once again.

“As far as we can tell, those complaints have for whatever reason not been investigated to date; nor have the alleged protagonists of these threats, Messrs Peter Nygard and Keod Smith ever been interviewed regarding our allegations.

“The matters recently reported – and which we continue to report to the IACHR at the OAS in Washington, DC; the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR); Human Rights Watch in New York; Americas Watch in Washington, DC, and Americas Watch at Harvard; Amnesty International; The Robert F Kennedy Centre For Justice and Human Rights in Washington, DC, and a host of other international and regional human rights NGOs – represent nothing more than a continuation of this campaign involving the very same culprits.

“The only new development in the matter concerns a series of warnings indicating that the un-investigated threats detailed in our nearly two-year-old evidence are once again urgent and immediate.

“Indeed, our decision to petition the IACHR and all the other international organisations, was specifically motivated by the failure of police, the government, civic leaders and political leaders of all parties to have regard to our earlier claims, as members felt STB would continue to be ignored until it was too late.

“Until the Minister of Foreign Affairs recently issued his press release decrying us and threatening to investigate us, we had become invisible and the activities against us were ignored.

“I am sure you will agree, commissioner, that it is not acceptable for hundreds of men to dress in Klu Klux Klan outfits, carry banners with all manner of vicious and threatening expressions, parade up and down Bay Street at Junkanoo and terrify us by hurling racist and hateful vitriol at us with no consequence.

“And yet lawyer Maria Daxon is to be put in jail and prosecuted for criminal libel?

“Indeed, we, like most Bahamians, sympathise with Prime Minister Christie and his family regarding the insulting song authored about them.

I think you will agree that if such ‘insults’ warrant arrest and investigation, so do our pleas over the years regarding far more serious complaints.

“Given the detailed evidence already in the possession of the police since February 2015, and the comprehensive information included in a Supreme Court civil action launched by STB members in March 2016, it would seem that a thorough probe of this material is the best place to start any investigation into circumstances which led to our petitioning the OAS Human Rights Commission at IACHR in the first place.

“Please let me know if there is anything more that I, my legal team, or the members and directors of Save The Bays can do to facilitate a speedy and comprehensive investigation of our historical complaints.

“Given that it was Minister Mitchell, and not STB, that made our application to the IACHR public, in the interests of transparency and full disclosure, we make this an open letter to you. It will also be filed with the Human Rights Commission IACHR Protection Team in Washington, DC, and the other NGOs listed above. They continue to consider our petitions and to closely and actively monitor the safety of human rights, environmental and other advocates in the Bahamas.

“I emphasise that similar processes for formal protection have been initiated by STB with the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR), Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. This letter will also be shared with these agencies.”