Human rights group calls for release of young singer

Mon, Aug 15th 2016, 01:13 PM

The Grand Bahama Human Rights Association (GBHRA) is calling for the immediate release two young singers detained in connection with a controversial song making the rounds on social media.

We strongly urge the police to recognize that they should not interfere in matters of freedom of expression and that seeking to charge these men with criminal libel is an anti-democratic and reactionary response which has absolutely no place in a modern society.

The lyrics of the song are indeed shocking, offensive and derogatory. However, that is not enough to justify interference with the right to freedom of expression, which is guaranteed by the Bahamas Constitution – much less deprive the singers of their liberty.

Once again, we warn the authorities that the world is watching. The Commissioner of Police must ask himself what sort of country The Bahamas would like to portray itself as to the international community.

Do we really want to be classed among those dictatorships and authoritarian regimes that prosecute singers for their lyrics, writers for the words they use, or artists for the content of their work? Does the Royal Bahamas Police Force really want to be seen as ‘The Thought Police’, who crack down on an punish those who exercise their constitutionally guaranteed freedoms?

In this regard, the GBHRA is particularly concerned about the admission of a senior officer that the singers were detained in connection with no specific charge. The officer was quoted in the press, following the arrest, as saying police are working with the Attorney General's Office to determine "whatever offences this falls under”.

This is a clear and blatant violation of due process, the presumption of innocence and the rule of law. The police cannot legally detain an individual in The Bahamas unless they suspect that person of having committing a specific offence. They cannot arrest first and determine suspicion after. We reiterate: this is not a dictatorship.

The GBHRA hereby calls on the government, and particularly Cabinet ministers Jerome Fitzgerald and Fred Mitchell, who have been so vocal in defending their right to free speech in Parliament, to speak out in defense of the constitutional rights or ordinary citizens.

While we fully condemn the sentiments expressed in the song, particularly the disparaging references to women and those with special needs, the GBRHA urges the authorities to recognize that individuals who may feel libeled or defamed have appropriate redress through the civil courts.

Regarding the derogatory sentiments against certain groups in the song, it is appropriate for society to respond in outrage, for activists to speak out in condemnation, for all of us to react in disgust. When commonly held standards of decency and propriety are challenged in modern democratic societies, these must be reinforced by the tide of public opinion – not coerced through force and intimidation.

To resurrect the archaic, anti-democratic charge of criminal libel, which countries around the world and even in the Caribbean region have been moving away from for years, is to set a dangerous precedent at a time when the citizenry of The Bahamas are increasingly concerned about the erosion of their personal liberties and uncomfortable with the general direction in which those in authority seem to be taking this country.

By The Grand Bahama Human Rights Association

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