Belize’s top cop will not discuss the future of the southside state of emergency with the newspaper. The proclamation of emergency should expire this week.
BELIZE CITY, Mon. Oct. 1, 2018– In the next two to three days, the one month period for the southside Belize City state of emergency that was signed on Tuesday, September 4, 2018 by the Governor General, Sir Colville Young, will expire, and the Government of Belize will have to release the 41 young men, considered “gangsters” by Belize’s Police Department, who have been held at the Belize Central Prison in accordance with the emergency measures that came into being under the proclamation. On September 4, a state of public emergency was declared in two areas of the south side of Belize City which are considered the strongholds of the Ghost Town Crips and the George Street group, respectively.
The implementation of the emergency measures, which caused some of the basic freedoms guaranteed under the Belize Constitution to be suspended, are now being questioned by two attorneys we spoke to, who will represent a number of those arrested and imprisoned in claims of false imprisonment, violation of constitutional rights and imprisonment under inhumane conditions to be made against the Government of Belize.
This evening we telephoned Assistant Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams, himself an attorney, to inquire about when the police are planning to release the detained persons who were incarcerated under the emergency measures put in place on September 4.
Before a question could be properly framed, however, ACP Williams, declared, “I am not going to talk about that!” And so in those few seconds, our interview was over.
The state of public emergency brought into being Emergency Powers Regulations in the form of Statutory Instrument # 50 of 2018, signed by the Minister of National Security, Hon. John Saldivar.
The Emergency Regulations, which were signed by the Governor General on 7th September, spell out precisely what are the powers of the police in the declared emergency areas. Under normal circumstances, persons who are arrested have a right to apply for bail, but under the Emergency Powers Regulations, bail cannot be applied for. Neither can citizens being held apply for a writ of habeas corpus which would determine if their detention is lawful.
The Emergency Regulations also spell out the detention order saying, “The Minister, if satisfied that a person has been concerned in acts prejudicial to public safety or public order including an offence under the Crime Control and Criminal Justice Act, or in the preparation or instigation of such acts and that for any reasons thereof it is necessary to exercise control over that person, may make an order to be known as a Detention Order against any person directing that he be detained.”
In addition, the Emergency Regulations also call for a curfew. The regulations say: “Every minor within an emergency area shall be and remain within his house or place of abode within the hours of eight o’clock at night until six o’clock of the following morning unless such minor is accompanied by an adult.”
The attorney Audery Matura made attempts to visit some of persons who are being held at the Belize Central Prison under the state of emergency, but she was not allowed to visit them. In a letter to the Chief Executive Officer of the prison, Virgilio Murillo, Matura complained that she was not allowed to see her clients. Matura cited Section 19 of the Belize Constitution Chapter 4 which speaks to a detained person’s right to communicate with a legal practitioner of his/her own choice.
“In this light, we request from you the basis upon which our attorney has been denied access to see several of the persons being detained under the preventative detention declared under the proclamation of September 4, 2018,” Matura’s letter to CEO Murillo stated.
CEO Murillo responded by telling Matura in writing, “I do not plan to get into any back and forth with you on this matter, but let me start off first of all by highlighting that whilst I am not a lawyer, I am very proud to say that I have an exceptional command of the English language.” Murillo went on to explain that he is “very puzzled and still wondering how it is that you arrived at your conclusion that I denied you access to your clients in accordance with the Prison Act?”
Murillo ends his three paragraph reply to Matura saying, “…you have quoted all the relevant sections that are pertinent to this situation. The section you highlighted is a continuum of Section C and I would respectfully suggest that you re-read all sections carefully.”
Audrey Matura’s letter to Murillo is copied to the Chief Justice, the Attorney General’s Ministry, Office of the Governor General and the President, Amnesty International.
All of the arrested and detained persons’ names and particulars were published in the Belize Gazette Extraordinary dated September 24.
The attorneys we spoke to for this story, Audrey Matura and Dickie Bradley both agree that the publication in the Gazette, in their opinion, falls short of what is required by the law. The persons detained are simply listed as “involved in gang activities, illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, involved in robberies.” There were no specific sections cited under the law under which they were being charged and held; neither were there any specific dates when the involvement in the illegal activities occurred.
The attorneys pointed out that many of the persons who were picked up were picked up illegally, because the Emergency Regulations were not signed into law until after the persons were already detained.
In the case of one person, Andrew Talbert, a resident of the Mile 8 community, he was arrested near his home, which is quite a distance away from the two declared areas. Talbert, like all of the detainees, was served with a letter which states that he was involved in gang activities.
A number of those detained are planning to bring lawsuits against the government for violating their constitutional rights and for false imprisonment.