Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Calls are be­ing made for the Unit­ed Na­tions to in­ves­ti­gate hu­man-rights vi­o­la­tions at the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre in Aripo, af­ter de­tainees there were al­leged­ly bru­tal­ly beat­en by sol­diers last Fri­day.The in­ci­dent comes as the Gov­ern­ment moves to pass the De­fence (Amend­ment) Bill 2013 to­mor­row to grant pow­ers of ar­rest to sol­diers.

The il­le­gal im­mi­grants, most of whom are from African coun­tries, were bad­ly beat­en af­ter they be­gan shak­ing the gates of the cen­tre to protest against de­lays in their repa­tri­a­tion, chair­man of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee Khafra Kam­bon claimed yes­ter­day.He said some of the de­tainees had been kept at the cen­tre for more than two years. They are fed three times a day, but are housed in poor­ly-ven­ti­lat­ed dor­mi­to­ries, he added.

Kam­bon said sol­diers and po­lice flogged the de­tainees, leav­ing one with a dis­lo­cat­ed knee and oth­ers with bruis­es and wounds, af­ter they were called to as­sist the staff when the de­tainees were stag­ing the protest."When the protest start­ed, some­one in man­age­ment called in and a joint po­lice/army pa­trol came," he said.

"The sol­diers beat every­body from a side. They beat them quite se­vere­ly. Two of the de­tainees were tak­en for med­ical treat­ment. The po­lice stood by and watched. A Grena­di­an had a dis­lo­cat­ed knee. The cen­tre was put on 24-hour lock­down since Fri­day and all vis­its were sus­pend­ed."He said since the beat­ings, some of the in­mates had been cough­ing up blood.

"Peo­ple have dif­fi­cul­ty with mov­ing their arms and legs," he added.He al­so de­scribed the cen­tre as a "tor­ture cham­ber" that was over­crowd­ed."These de­tainees are not crim­i­nals, but they are be­ing treat­ed like crim­i­nals," Kam­bon said."I was hor­ri­fied, be­cause in the male sec­tion, the ven­ti­la­tion is ex­treme­ly poor and when the sun hits the dor­mi­to­ries, it is a sweat box. When the num­bers are great it is like a tor­ture cham­ber.

"What is hap­pen­ing is a vi­o­la­tion of hu­man rights that must be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty."He added that last year he held a meet­ing with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er about repa­tri­a­tion de­lays."We saw some im­prove­ment. Be­fore, they were giv­ing the de­tainees prison food but now their meals have im­proved," Kam­bon said.

How­ev­er, he said the in­ci­dent with the sol­diers must be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre man­ag­er Win­ston Lopez was not in of­fice yes­ter­day, but a woman who an­swered the phone said vis­its were be­ing al­lowed. Cur­tis Belford, deputy di­rec­tor of the Of­fice of Law En­force­ment Pol­i­cy, which is in charge of the cen­tre, con­firmed po­lice were called to quell the protest.

He said: "There was a dis­tur­bance at the cen­tre. The de­tainees were un­hap­py about the length of time for the repa­tri­a­tion process. They start­ed to shake down the gates. The de­ten­tion of­fi­cers re­alised it was be­yond their con­trol and they re­quest­ed as­sis­tance from po­lice, who brought sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol."Asked whether de­tainees were beat­en dur­ing the protest, Belford said:

"I don't know who get beat up, but I know some force was used on the of­fend­ing de­tainees." Asked why repa­tri­a­tion was tak­ing so long, Belford said there were prob­lems in get­ting pass­ports. He said there were 78 peo­ple at the cen­tre, 12 of them women. He said the de­tainees were giv­en catered meals and had ac­cess to recre­ation, books and games.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, War­rant Of­fi­cer Hills, of the De­fence Force, de­nied sol­diers were in­volved in any beat­ing of de­tainees."That is ab­solute­ly not true. We will make a full state­ment on this to­mor­row (to­day)," he said.Ef­forts to con­tact Warn­er for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful as calls to his cel­lu­lar phone went unan­swered.