Blog #1: Justice for Human Rights Victims in Haiti

On January 19, 2010, one week after the devastating earthquake which hit Haiti, prison officials conducted a massacre that left many prisoners wounded or dead.  The official story from the prison claimed that an escapee had killed several of his fellow inmates before escaping.  The New York Times investigated the story and in May 2010, the investigation produced a conflicting story.  The United Nations and Haitian government, through a joint effort, appointed an independent commission to investigate the incident.  The commission concluded that corrections officers had "opened fire on unarmed inmates 'deliberately and without justification.'"  Fourteen corrections officers were charged with murder, attempted murder, and various other charges in the case, one of which had been moved to run the country's largest penitentiary.  Eight of these officers were charged with sentences ranging from 2-13 years after a protracted trial that was little more than a circus.  Trials of state officials and members of the military is an almost unheard of occurrence in Haiti.  The sentences were much more lenient than the general populace would receive, but a guilty verdict in and of itself is a great victory for the rule of law and protecting human rights in Haiti.

Many people would overlook this story because prisoners are considered to be less deserving of proper treatment and human rights, and that is exactly why I wanted to highlight it.  Human rights are derived simply from being born into the human race, and criminals are just as deserving of our time and attention as other individuals.  In Haiti, as in many poor countries, crime is a problem, but that does not give state officials free reign to terrorize and murder prisoners.  These officers opened fire on unarmed, incarcerated men that had no opportunity to defend themselves.  The lives of those prisoners were forfeit for no valid reason, as the commission concluded.  While I truly feel the sentencing should have been much harsher for the heinous treatment of the prisoners, the verdict is at least one step towards establishing a system more accountable for human rights abuses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/world/americas/7-haitian-policemen-convicted-in-2011-les-cayes-prison-killings.html?ref=world