12197: HAITIAN GOVERNMENT ILLEGALLY IMPRISONS BADLY BEATEN JOURNALISTS (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Haïti Progrès, 1398 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11210 Tel:
718-434-8100 Fax: 718-434-5551

For Immediate Release: May 30, 2002
Contact: Kim Ives (New York), 718-434-8100, Maude Leblanc (Haiti), (509)
222-6513

HAITIAN GOVERNMENT IMPRISONS JOUNALISTS
IN URGENT NEED OF MEDICAL ATTENTION

The Haitian government has illegally imprisoned two journalists, Darwin
St. Julien of Haïti Progrès newspaper and Allan Deshommes of Radio
Atlantique, in Port-au-Prince's National Penitentiary without charges.
Both are in urgent need of medical specialists. St. Julien may loose an
eye, and Deshommes' condition may be life threatening.

The two were arrested, "for their own protection" according to police,
during a May 27 demonstration sponsored by the workers group Batay
Ouvriyè (Workers Struggle) in the northern town of St. Raphael. Armed
men in the pay of a local landlord and town officials attacked the
demonstration, killing two demonstrators.

Seven people, including the two journalists, were arrested and held in
St. Raphael until May 29. During that time, the journalists saw doctors
who ordered them to seek immediate specialized medical attention. St.
Julien was struck in the eye, and the injury is worsening in the
terrible prison conditions in which he is being held. Deshommes was also
severely beaten and periodically blacks out; he may have a fractured
skull.

The journalists, like the other five prisoners, have not been charged
with any crime, in violation of the Haitian law that detainees must be
indicted within 48 hours. Furthermore, the National Penitentiary, whose
abominable conditions have recently been denounced by Amnesty
International, is only supposed to house convicted criminals.

The mayor of St. Raphael, Adonija Sévère, says that the demonstrators,
including the two journalists, are "terrorists." On May 29, in a highly
unusual move, the Haitian government sent a helicopter to St. Raphael to
transport the seven prisoners to Port-au-Prince.

"This is clearly a political crackdown," said Evariste Wilson, Haïti
Progrès's bureau chief in Cap Haïtien. "They are arresting journalists
covering a march, calling them terrorists, not charging them with
anything, and then transporting them out of the jurisdiction where they
were arrested. And they are in critical condition."

The arrested demonstrators may also be injured, but a delegation of
journalists which visited the Penitentiary on May 30 were not allowed to
see any of the prisoners.

Haïti Progrès is calling on all journalist defense organizations and
human rights groups to intervene rapidly and strongly to demand that the
Haitian government respect the law to either charge or release the
journalists, and provide all those injured with immediate medical
attention.

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