HUMAN Rights Bahamas yesterday slammed Immigration Minister Elsworth Johnson after he accused the United Nations of lacking balance for criticising the government's plans to demolish shanty towns in Abaco.

In a scathing statement released yesterday, the human rights watchdog group called the minister’s recent comments “reckless” and “inflammatory” and added his “confrontational attitude” towards the UN is reflective of the “stubborn attitude” of so many former administrations.

“This mulish pose continues to be an embarrassment to The Bahamas on the world stage,” the group said.

“His argument seems to amount to: ‘The international community should go fix Haiti before they bother us.’ First of all, the majority of the individuals in question are not Haitian, but Bahamian citizens or lawful permit holders, as his government’s own studies have shown.

“Secondly, the long suffering families in question would not be in their current predicament if his government had done something to provide some form of shelter or plan for a path to long-term housing for those who lost everything in Hurricane Dorian. How will it benefit the Bahamas to push these families into the street?”

Rights Bahamas said Mr Johnson ought to be reminded that the Bahamas is a member of the UN Human Rights Council, representing CARICOM of which the Republic of Haiti is a member.

The group also went on to accuse the Minnis administration of being discriminatory towards the Haitian community and having a hidden agenda.

“The government of the Bahamas cannot continue to pretend that their Abaco home demolition plan is about building standards, when it is quite obviously and blatantly a discriminatory effort to destroy communities of a particular ethnic background,” the group continued.

“The continued references to Haiti highlights this fact, as does their failure to apply the same extreme policy to other communities that suffer the very same building code deficiencies.”

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