Guyana police burn genitals of teenager

Guyana boy

The Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) Sunday harshly condemned the brutal torture of a 14 year-old boy by Guyana Police at the Leonora Police Station, West Coast Demerara.

The Institute also accused the force of an attempted cover-up, and is calling for the removal of Guyana’s embattled Police Commissioner, Henry Green as well as the command of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Force’s “D” Division, headquartered at Leornora Station.

“The brutal torture of this 14 year-old boy at the hands of evil Police officers should invoke the outrage of the Guyanese nation and the world as well as condemnation of the active policy of torture, which has been countenanced by the government of President Bharrat Jagdeo,” the New York based Institute said.

Recently, Guyana’s Minister of agriculture, Robert Persaud, told Parliament that three Guyana Defense Force (GDF) officers who were tortured with electric shock and burnt in connection with missing GDF AK 47 rifles, were not tortured but that their treatment should only be view as “roughing-up.” GDF Chief of Staff, Commodore Gary Best, also made this assertion while defending torture techniques employed by Guyana’s security forces. He also claimed that the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Persons, “defines torture too broadly.”

The Institute has long dismissed the government’s “roughing up” claim as nonsense and accused it of granting the security forces carte blanche authority to torture certain citizens whenever it is politically expedient. CGID noted that “Individuals like Mr. Persaud and Commodore Best, who manifest reckless and depraved disregard for human beings, belong no where in public office.”

The organization called for officials of the government and security forces who countenance, promote or commit torture to be prosecuted for international crimes against humanity, and added that “The lawless public policy espoused by Persaud and Best have created an enabling law enforcement environment in which the brutal torture of this teenager, as well as others, occur with impunity.”

The 14 year-old, whose surname is Thomas, was severely burnt around the genital area, by Police officers while being interrogated about alleged knowledge of the murder of ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Region 3 official, Ramnauth Bisram.

“What is even more abhorrent and criminal, is that the depraved Police officers held the teen with third degree burns in prison for four days, during which period they refused him access to a medical doctor, his parents and an Attorney. He was only taken to the West Demerara regional Hospital Saturday, after the matter was reported in the press and the Guyana Bar Association and a group of prominent Lawyers issued statements of condemnation,” CGID said.

It has been revealed that the investigating officers doused the lad’s genitals with a flammable liquid and lit him afire, after an unsuccessful interrogation attempt about Bisram’s murder. A press photographer secretly gained access into the prison and photograph the tortured teenager.

The lad was arrested from his Canal Number Two Polder home last Tuesday and taken to the La Grange Police Station before being transfered to Police divisional headquarters at Leanora. However, when his mother, Shirley Thomas, and stepfather, Doodnauth Jaikarran, made inquiries later about his whereabouts and the reason for his detention, Police officers deliberately misdirected them to check with five different Police Stations along the West Coast, although they had knowledge that Thomas was transferred to Leorona.

GCID declared that “It is a national disgrace that under the leadership of the Guyanese Police Commissioner, drug dealers operate above the law in full public view and collaborate with certain police officials who allow their criminal enterprise to flourish, and that torture and other crimes against humanity have been institutionalized as Police interrogation techniques.”

The organization called for the officers who tortured Thomas to be arrested, charged with aggravated assault, prosecuted and jailed. It also called for the matter as well as the issue of torture in Guyana generally, to bee publicized in the international community and for torture cases to be filed against the government, the Guyana Police Force and the rough officers at the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and UN Committee against Torture.

CGID is calling on President Bharrat Jagdeo, Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee and Minister of Human Services and Child Welfare, Priya Manichand, to condemn the torture of the teen.