Posted by Cornelius Hamelberg (213.114.132.34) on May 15, 2005 at 18:17:38:
SIERRA LEONE POLICE BRUTALITY AT LUMLEY BEACH ROUNDABOUT posted by Sylvia
Blyden is indeed shocking.
This kind of criminal violation of fellow citizens' human rights must be
brought to a stop and those in the Police Force should be disciplined.
If they are not disciplined then we have sunk lower and our creator is not
happy about such behaviour, as a result of which the nation will suffer some
more as a divine chastisement. Problem is that the arrogant think that they can
cheat God. This is an illusion. It has never happened and that is why Sierra
Leone is suffering. Don’t we have compassion for our fellow citizens? Is this
not part of our national values?
If it is, then those Officers must be punished. Even if they do not
understand – they have been here before and will return to claim their
punishment, but it’s better that we all make amends now.
The Bodhisattvas return to try to put things right.
Lets look at this idea of the Bodhisattva, and develop some compassion to our
fellow man who is part of us and with whom we share a destiny as a human
family. Those who act like animals should not be surprised that they are
destroying our lives.
Do good and turn from evil.
Turn from evil and do good.
Do not move from human to become animal.
>
> > Ämne: SIERRA LEONE POLICE BRUTALITY AT LUMLEY BEACH ROUNDABOUT
>
> In the early hours of this morning, the Sierra Police raided the
> Lumley Roundabout where Lumley Beach Dot Com is situated and in an
> attempt to arrest alleged loiterers and diamba smokers, they carted
> away one of Sierra Leone's foremost international human rights
> activists named Allan Quee. But not before giving him a solid beating,
> tearing his clothes up, kicking him in his private parts and causing
> him to bleed. His crime? He stepped out of my Internet centre where he
> was browsing to question the police as to why they were cruelly
> dragging a lady on the streets into their landrover. The police said
> that the lady was a prostitute and Allan Quee should not question
> them. Poor Mr. Quee proceeded to try to tell them about the training
> he has been involved in with the British and with UNAMSIL trying to
> educate the new Police Force about human rights and citizens rights
> especially during arrests. Mr. Quee condemned the act of dragging a
> lady on the streets of Freetown with her skirts all up and exposed.
> This is what caused his beating up and his handcuffing and arrest.
> Additionally, in their efforts to "cleanse" the area of "loitering
> vermin", the police arrested four chinese citizens who were out
> looking for food to eat. They said the Chinese should not be on the
> streets. The chinese guys unfortunately retorted that they had all
> right to be out in the morning hours. They were also manhandled,
> handcuffed and bundled into a waiting landrover. The Chinese whilst
> being carted off, exclaimed "Sierra Leone, big problem still in here.
> big problem. big. very big problem." Did I hear you say, "There goes
> the Chinese tourism package"?
>
> It must be noted that one of the leading police involved in all this
> was stark raving drunk and was even holding a can of extra large
> Heineken beer in his hands. When I went to the station at 3am this
> morning, he still was in full police uniform holding the beer (some
> say it was his third or fourth that night). His name is Inspector
> Bombas Palmer or so he identifies himself. Several of the other police
> officers we met at the station tried to threaten and intimidate us. I
> took out my mobile telephone which records video clips and I made some
> sensational video recordings of the intimidation efforts. I also took
> a video recording of the drunk Inspector Bombas Palmer who says he has
> over 30 years experience in the police force. they had no idea that my
> telephone also records videos.
>
> Quee's younger brother was also bundled into the landrover right in
> front of my Internet Centre and Quee's jeep was also given a "beating"
> with a gun-butt denting the jeep in the process. Quee and his brother
> managed to get someone to call up their uncle Colonel Benjamin but all
> efforts to get the senior police officers tonight almost proved
> fruitless as all their phones were turned off until we were fortunate
> to get Superintendent of Police Patrick Johnson (former ADC to VP
> Berewa) who rushed to the Congo Cross Police Station to meet the
> situation. It is now 6am here and more updates of this unfolding drama
> will be revealed later. But one thing is sure about all of this. A
> precedence has been set and a legal precedence has to also be set. The
> Police are not here to brutalise citizens and foreigners. They are
> being paid with our tax payers money and they cannot use our own money
> to brutalise us and to ruin the potential of turning Sierra Leone into
> a tourist haven with arbitrary arrests and beatings of innocent
> people. The Inspector General of Police and AlShek Kamara of the
> Police Disciplinary Committe recently set a very commendable example
> by disciplining police officers who brutalised Awoko journalists. We
> hope that they will also discipline these errant drunk police officers
> but most of all, people also hope that a criminal case can be brought
> up against the Sierra Leone Police. We hope somewhere in the statutes,
> there is a clause that will allow those innocent citizens and Chinese
> nationals whom were given that beating and bleeding this early
> morning, to sue the Sierra Leone Police for damages.
>