ALP To Monitor Detention Centre

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Thursday, 19 July 2012 02:30

By Everton Barnes

Antigua St. John's- The newly established Detention Centre that is being operated by the Immigration Department is to receive special scrutiny from the opposition Antigua Labour Party which has expressed fears that Caribbean nationals will be abused while being held in custody there.

ALP Political Leader Lester Bird said he is concerned that the Centre is set up for the sole purpose of housing Caribbean nationals while they await deportation from the country.

“I am deeply troubled by the Detention Centre. I fear that it is a Detention Centre designed for our Caribbean brothers and sisters, and the Labour party will be watching keenly to see who is detained in it, what sort of people, for what infringement of the law and to ensure due process of the law for people detained there,” he said.

Bird said the establishment of the Centre is tantamount to racial profiling that takes place across the United States where people of colour are often targeted, and his party wants to ensure that the facility does not operate like a prison.

He said while neither he nor the ALP would have any problems with a Centre for genuine and proven infringements of the immigration and labour laws of the country, the party is against any discrimination in the application of such laws.

“It is not Caribbean citizens alone who infringe our immigration and labour laws. Further, we want to ensure that all the persons who are detained at the Centre are allowed the due process of the law and not kept in the Detention Centre ad infinitum for long periods of time without redress,” he declared.

According to Bird, the ALP is also concerned that the Centre does not become a place for abuse of Caribbean people as this would do nothing but further tarnish our country’s standing among its sister Caribbean countries.

Bird noted that former ALP Administrations had built a reputation for being tolerant of Caribbean people living in Antigua & Barbuda. He also called for the same rights and privileges to be accorded to those who may be detained at the Centre as the government would wish for Antigua & Barbuda nationals detained overseas.

The ALP leader said there has been wanton abuse of the rights of people by the government and the ALP sees its role as standing up for these rights wherever the abuses occur.

ALP Chairman, Gaston Browne, said he too supports the views expressed by Bird and he noted that in its public pronouncements about the Centre the government named only nationals from three Caribbean territories. This, he said, is an indication of the government’s true intentions regarding the Detention Centre.

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