Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Dec 08, 2008 News
…‘I am not prepared at this time to allow visits’ – Minister Rohee
Visits to the Brickdam and Alberttown Police Stations by Parliamentarians will not be facilitated, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee has declared.
Addressing the National Assembly during the ‘questions to ministers’ segment, Rohee said that the denial of such visits by Members of Parliament has nothing to do with security, but other reasons which he does not wish to disclose.
The minister was responding to a question posed by PNCR member Deborah Backer about the likelihood of MPs visiting detainees at these police stations.
“I am not prepared at this time to allow visits to the lockups at either station, or any station for MP’s. It is not for security reasons, because I think that we can provide security, but for other reasons. I am not prepared at this stage to say what the reasons are,” the minister said as he dismissed Backer’s question.
Addressing the issue of the sleeping arrangements at the two stations, Backer asked the Home Affairs Minister whether citizens of Guyana or of other countries, who are held overnight, are provided with a bed, mattress, foam, or any other type of bedding to sleep on.
In responding to the question, Rohee said: “When I was there in 1968 and 1989 there were no beddings to sleep on. Beddings and bed are not provided.”
This prompted Backer to ask the minister to clarify whether he was saying that there have been no improvements in the sleeping conditions at the Brickdam and Alberttown stations for the past 19 years.
In response, Minister Rohee said, “That is precisely what I am saying.” He noted that he is not aware that this act contravenes any international conventions to which Guyana is a signatory.
The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), in its 2006 Country Report, had stated that the conditions in “police lock-ups are again deteriorating. GHRA has received complaints about the condition of the Brickdam lock-ups from both police ranks and detained persons.”
The report had also stated that conditions in the Ruimveldt lock-ups, which are used to detain juveniles, remained inadequate, “over-crowded and inhumane.
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