Dar­ren Mitchell, the lawyer rep­re­sent­ing de­tainees at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre, is warn­ing the pub­lic that more “in­no­cent” peo­ple will be locked up if the State of Emer­gency con­tin­ues.

His com­ments came as 89 de­tainees at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre staged a hunger strike on Oc­to­ber 28 against what they de­scribed as “in­def­i­nite de­ten­tion with­out charge or ev­i­dence.”

Al­though the hunger strike is now over, the ac­tion has re­newed de­bate over the SoE De­ten­tion Reg­u­la­tions, which are be­ing used to hold cit­i­zens with­out tri­al.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mitchell, who rep­re­sents six de­tainees, said the strike showed their frus­tra­tion over what he said was the ero­sion of due process.

Mitchell said his clients have been held with­out ev­i­dence, claim­ing the po­lice have shift­ed from in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ten­tion.

“It seems po­lice no longer in­ves­ti­gate. Po­lice no longer gath­er ev­i­dence. All you need is a tac­ti­cal group to en­ter peo­ple’s homes and put them some­where and just say to the pub­lic that crime is go­ing down,” Mitchell lament­ed.

Mitchell crit­i­cised com­ments made by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, sug­gest­ing that some de­tainees have not com­mit­ted crimes but were held to pre­vent them from do­ing so.

“Up­on whose judge­ment or what judg­ment is there im­par­tial­ly that there is some in­ten­tion?” Mitchell asked. “What is the thresh­old? Who makes these de­ci­sions?”

He ar­gued that the sys­tem al­lows for ar­bi­trary de­ten­tion and lacks over­sight.

“The pub­lic is be­ing hood­winked in­to think­ing that this is a law­ful mea­sure be­ing im­ple­ment­ed by the po­lice when in fact, the po­lice no longer have the abil­i­ty to as­sess ev­i­den­tial ma­te­r­i­al as op­posed to in­tel­li­gence, as op­posed to mis­chief,” he al­leged.

Ac­cord­ing to Mitchell, some of those de­tained in­clude par­ents and pub­lic of­fi­cers.

He cit­ed one case in­volv­ing a woman who went to as­sist po­lice in an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and end­ed up de­tained with her in­fant. “She went in, gave a state­ment, and af­ter that, an of­fi­cer walked in and said, ‘Now we’re keep­ing you,’” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said his clients’ sit­u­a­tion re­flects a broad­er is­sue of law en­force­ment act­ing out­side its le­gal lim­its. “Law en­force­ment of­fi­cers are not en­forc­ing the law but op­er­at­ing con­trary to and against the grain,” he said.

The hunger strike end­ed af­ter sev­er­al days when prison au­thor­i­ties spoke with de­tainees, but sources say some of the is­sues re­main un­re­solved. Hu­man rights lawyer Sub­has Pan­day has called for ju­di­cial re­view of the de­ten­tions be­fore a Tri­bunal and for the State to clar­i­fy the le­gal grounds for con­tin­ued in­car­cer­a­tion un­der the SoE with­out charges or ev­i­dence.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie as­sured that the State was act­ing strict­ly in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion and was not abus­ing its pow­ers un­der the SoE de­ten­tion reg­u­la­tions.

“The State has act­ed strict­ly in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion and has ad­hered to all of the rel­e­vant process­es es­tab­lished by law.”

—RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA