By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
THE Minnis administration should be ashamed for being “dressed down” by the United Nations Human Rights Council over its policy on migrants affected by Hurricane Dorian, Rights Bahamas said yesterday.
The group also praised Pineridge MP Frederick McAlpine for his liberal views on same sex unions and abortion, calling him courageous and sensible.
The Human Rights Council has urged the Bahamas to end deportations to Haiti for now, emphasising the vulnerable status migrants affected by Dorian currently occupy. The group called on the government not to deport people who lack documentation without assessing each person’s case and to implement due process guarantees as the people are “entitled to under international law.”
This came after the government reported that more than 100 Haitians were recently deported to Haiti.
Rights Bahamas said: “It is the height of irony that a country newly elected to the UN’s Human Rights Council should have to be dressed down in this embarrassing fashion for its aggressive, inhumane and intolerant behaviour in the face of a humanitarian crisis. We should be working to help all victims of the storm, not heaping further misery on those who are most vulnerable. This FNM government should be ashamed of itself. So too should members of the opposition who have been fanning the flames of hysteria.
“Let us not forget that it was the PLP that recently launched the most frightening and discriminatory attack on people of Haitian ethnicity in Bahamian history. The government has been continually warned that local human rights activists are working with our international contacts, including the United Nations, the OAS, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Amnesty International to bring awareness to the enormous excesses of the Immigration Department and the increasingly draconian pronouncements from the executive. Perhaps now they will start to listen.”
As for Mr McAlpine, the MP expressed support for civil unions for same-sex couples in an interview with The Tribune on Tuesday. Rights Bahamas went further than him yesterday, saying it encourages the removal of all barriers to same sex marriage in the country.
Mr McAlpine had told The Tribune on Tuesday that he believes eligible people should be entitled to same-sex civil unions and abortion, adding that the country deserves a national conversation about expanding rights in these areas.
Rights Bahamas said Mr McAlpine’s comments “represent what is probably the most mature, rational and sensible perspective offered by any Bahamian politician, on any issue, in many years.”
“Pineridge MP Frederick McAlpine is commended for his enlightened, fair and compassionate remarks regarding same sex unions and abortion laws in the Bahamas,” the group said. “The current situation, in which neither option is legally available, should be denounced by all who truly believe in the concept of individual human rights and freedoms.”
“McAlpine’s comments are a breath of fresh air in a society that has stagnated in the grip of antiquated ideas and harmful superstitions for far too long. We hope this is the beginning of a wider national conversation on abortion and same-sex rights in the Bahamas.”
The group said it supports a planned LGBT pride parade for next year and called on authorities to give organisers all the “support and protection they need to make this historic event a reality.”
Regarding abortion, the group said every woman should have the unfettered right to choose what happens to their body.
“Abortions - as McAlpine notes - happen regardless, however these are often extremely dangerous undertakings which pose the risk of serious physical and psychological consequences for women,” Rights Bahamas said. “No one should have to risk so much over any personal decision. Meanwhile, the consequences of forcing unwanted children upon unwilling parents can be seen all around us in the anger, disillusionment and social alienation displayed by many young people in the country. As McAlpine says, the government should stay out of people’s bedrooms; so too should the Christian Council. If only more of our political leaders had the vision and bravery of the MP for Pineridge.”
Comments
The_Oracle 5 years ago
Seems that the xenophobia originates with Government, given their statements and actions, and their haste. And yet successive Governments have created the "problem" if it must be called that. Shameful,
Islandboy100 5 years ago
Rights Bahamas never stands up for the rights of Bahamians but they are surly standing up for the Haitians that will destroy the existence of Bahamians our history culture and the Bahamas.
TheMadHatter 5 years ago
Exactly. Everyone has the right to a Bahamian passport. If you are a HUMAN though, you have double the rights. That seems to be what they are saying.
Well_mudda_take_sic 5 years ago
The UN Human Rights Council and Rights Bahamas are not truly concerned at all. If they were, they would be taking Haiti to task for not taking back their own people who are illegally residing in the Bahamas. Or they would be negotiating with other countries in the Caribbean to take the lion's share of these illegal Haitian aliens, recognizing that it is impossible for the Bahamas to sustain them in such large overwhelming numbers without the Bahamas itself turning into another Haiti.
Sickened 5 years ago
Exactly! They are not trying to help Haiti at all, they are trying to help illegal immigrants.
BahamaPundit 5 years ago
What an awful article. Ashamed of what???? Go carry your shame to Haiti and fix the country. Our government has every right to adhere to the law!!! The UN needs to go CIC and speak out against Chinese concentration camps. This is just bullying the Bahamas. If the Bahamas became another Haiti, the UN wouldn't care at all. The UN should be ashamed for encroaching on our sovereign right to adhere to the rule of law!!!
geostorm 5 years ago
@BahamaPundit, I was just about to type something very similar but I will just keep my thoughts and support yours 100-fold!
mandela 5 years ago
Well put BahamaPundit
bahamianson 5 years ago
if a law is broken, time must be served. Is that rocket science? If i rob a bank to pay for my child to attend st. Andrews, what do you do? Do you take the money back? Are you going to take my child out of school? Wow, heartless! Let me keep the money , so I can pay the school fee and feed my child......doesn't that sound illogical?
EasternGate 5 years ago
"Rights Bahamas" backing the " wrong" horse
Ton_Heijnmans 5 years ago
....
We have never witnessed such madness.
The United Nations and its associated bodies .... they don't ever purchase their employees' holiday-destination airfare tickets and hotel accommodation.
Regular volk do that, all by themselves, paying out their own money.
For millions (onlookers, witnesses) not all the sunshine and sharks in China, would loosen the grip they klingon to their dollars while the waste-of-millions ad campaigns drift past their utterly scornful gaze. URL RESEARCH PDF, MUNROE COLLEGE, 2008, FIELDING et al http://bit.ly/2OWWPdM The Stigma of Being “Haitian” in The Bahamas - Monroe College by WJ Fielding · 2008 ·
ARTIKEL:
PHOTOS: After The Storm, Haitians In The Bahamas Depend On The Kindness Of Strangers October 12, 2019 | 7:00 AM ET CHERYL DIAZ MEYER URL https://n.pr/2IZoNl1
Meanwhile, United Nations TV broadcast a piece to every news desk worldwide on UNTV FEED that goes out on the AP WIRES, in pretty much every known major global language, where the audio visual piece dealt with two subjects.
1) The massacres in northern Syria, by the Al Assad regime and Turks, followed by 2) the incomprehensible ugliness of the O'Subtraction regime, of the Carib beans.
Well_mudda_take_sic 5 years ago
@Haitian Distractor immediately above:
You forgot to mention Trump loves Haitians which is why you don't see the UN Human Rights Council or Rights Bahamas giving him a hard time. Your very deliberate effort to distract using long non-sensical posts designed to deter others from posting their comments on a very controversial article is much too easily seen through my friend. Suggest you try again and again and again and again and again and again and again.....waste as much of your time as you want because few if any of us even try to read shallow gibberish like yours.....most of us now skip right over your intended hogwash and post our comments to our heart's content. LMAO
Ton_Heijnmans 5 years ago
...
Pest and post all you can. We couldn't care a less.
... Digging your own grave, which makes the entire process quite an amusing spectacle.
We've never met a Ba Ham i AM!-ian in our lives.
Never plan to neither.
One of us spoke to a black one time, tho. Wasn't a Hate`num, no.
Fave to face, even.
Trio :)
Enjoy your decent !
To Gravy Bones locker....
Sickened 5 years ago
Obviously english isn't your first language. Would you mind telling us where you are from so that we can get some context and perhaps be able to translate the language you type?
Ton_Heijnmans 5 years ago
Zulu.
birdiestrachan 5 years ago
THE TRUTH the more Haitians come to the Bahamas the stronger Rights Bahamas become. Their mission will be accomplished. they are really RIGHTS HAITIANS
Haiti is always in an uproar. How can they build the Bahamas
John 5 years ago
Is the play of words on immigrants or illegal immigrants. Because obviously no UN can ever in good faith and clean heart and clear conscience tell a country to stop deporting illegals, especially when the country itself is in crisis and mass devastation. The part about deporting immigrants who were on work permits and their jobs no longer exists, I agree they should be given reasonable time to wrap up their affairs and to leave the country. Six months minimum if not until their work permits expire.
killemwitdakno 5 years ago
This is the same UN that's leaving Haiti as unrest uproars. No delay for circumstance?
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opini…
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