The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

LAWYER Fred Smith, QC, said it is “astounding” that the government’s top attorney has claimed “ignorance” over the alleged illegal “appalling” detainment of several Cameroonians at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre.

Human Rights Bahamas (HRB) on Sunday raised alarm over the issue alleging that a group of men, women and one child seeking asylum in The Bahamas after fleeing their war-torn country have faced many injustices.

Apart from being detained at the Detention Centre for periods of time that contravene the laws of this country, the Cameroonians have also faced “abuses” and are being deprived of the right to communicate with family and lawyers, HRB has said.

The human rights group has threatened to take legal action against the government over the matter.

Asked about the situation on Sunday, Attorney General Carl Bethel said he was unaware but told The Tribune an investigation would be ordered into the allegations.

To claim ignorance, Mr Smith said is unacceptable, adding there was “no need” to investigate.

“It is astounding to me that the attorney general would claim ignorance of the thousands of people who have been held and continue to be held illegally at the Carmichael concentration camp,” Mr Smith said.

“Ever since we were able to get the release of dozens of illegally held detainees, the attorney general had promised, as had the former government, to investigate who is at the Detention Centre and whether they are being held illegally. This is very simple. There is no need to investigate.

“Anybody at the Detention Centre who is not being held for investigation for 48 hours before being brought before a court should be released. The constitution is clear. The criminal procedure code is clear. Once arrested for suspicion of any offence, a person must be brought before the magistrate or released.

“This is not complicated. Case after case after case has repeatedly emphasised that you cannot hold anybody whether it is Bahamian or foreign indefinitely.”

Mr Smith further said he was disappointed that the Free National Movement government has not proven itself to be an administration to govern by the rule of law.

“The AG and his lawyers know there are literally hundreds of people that I represent and thousands who I don’t who have been and are being held illegally.

“In the (Douglas) Ngumi case and now the Cameroonians who have fled political victimisation in their country, they came to the Bahamas because we are known as a country that respects the rule of law and because we have signed on to the various covenants and treaties to provide political asylum to refugees.

“Instead, they have been tortured, abused (and) beaten,” he alleged. “The poor woman (one asylum seeker) has been separated from her young child. They have been deprived of communicating. They have had to do it in secret and clandestinely sending little notes to communicate with us.

“They left their country where they were in fear of being abused and raped and imprisoned and they came here and are being made to suffer even worse treatment.

“The prime minister, I was there at his swearing in, he promised to govern by the rule of law and that has simply not happened.

“They have continued the illegal practices of the previous PLP administration.

“. . .They (detainees) are not criminals. Why do they have to take their phones from them? Why don’t they communicate with their lawyers? It is appalling that our little Bahamas, where we say it is better, is treating people so savagely, so brutally, so insensitively, with no compassion and no respect for their human dignity.”

HRB said Sunday: “Less than a week after (Immigration) Minister Elsworth Johnson insisted that the Bahamas is a ‘country of laws’, it has emerged that his Immigration Department is (allegedly) illegally detaining seven asylum seekers who fled a violent sectarian conflict in Cameroon where they were targeted as members of a minority group.

“The seven are from an English-speaking region in the northwest of that country, which since 2017 has struggled to resist forcible assimilation by the much larger French-speaking majority and government. The struggle that so far claimed 3,000 lives and displaced more than half a million people.

“The asylum seekers have not been charged with or convicted of any crime in the Bahamas and the government has no legal justification for holding them indefinitely, some for more than a year and a half,” the statement said.

However, one of the asylum seekers was arraigned last week.

“All have been interviewed by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), and are in the process of having their political refugee status officially confirmed.”