Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/SierrLeone.htm
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CAUTION: The following links have
been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Sierra Leone. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in adjacent
countries and/or regions. Meanwhile,
check out some of the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Sierra Leone U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/sierra-leone/
[accessed 5 August
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT The law prohibits
such practices, and there were no reports that government officials employed
them. NGOs reported, however, that security forces used excessive force to
manage civil protests in Freetown and provincial town (see section 1.a.). Impunity remained a
significant problem in the security forces, notably in the Sierra Leone
Police (SLP). Observers noted police lacked training on crowd control and on
human rights topics. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Prison and
detention center conditions were harsh and life threatening because of food
shortages; gross overcrowding due to an inefficient justice system and a lack
of sufficient correctional facilities and personnel; physical abuse; lack of
clean water; inadequate sanitary conditions; and a lack of medical care. Physical
Conditions: The country’s 21 prisons, designed to hold 2,375 inmates, held
3,808 as of August. The most severe example of overcrowding was in the
Freetown Male Correctional Center, designed to hold 324 inmates, which
instead held 1,407 individuals. Some prison cells measuring six feet by nine
feet held nine or more inmates. ARREST PROCEDURES
AND TREATMENT OF DETAINEES Pretrial and remand
detainees spent an average of three to five years in pretrial detention
before courts examined their cases or filed formal charges. In extreme cases the
wait could be as long as 12 years. Sierra Leone: One
dead, two seriously injured as security forces open fire on protesting
students Amnesty
International AI, 23 March 2017 [accessed 13 January
2019] The security forces
killed one person and seriously injured at least two others as they opened
fire on protesting students in the city of Bo today, Amnesty International
said. “This bloodshed and
loss of young life is a tragedy and suggests a heavy handed response by the
security forces to a student protest,” said Sabrina Mahtani, Amnesty
International West Africa researcher. Students of Njala University, near the city of Bo, started protesting
on Thursday morning against a long-running lecturers' strike which has left
their college closed since October 2016. Lecturers have been on strike due to
non-payment of salaries by the government. Police say that students did not
obtain a permit for the protest today, were burning tires and blocking major
roads. Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/sierra-leone/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 18 May
2020] F3. IS THERE
PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR
AND INSURGENCIES? Detention
facilities are under strain, with occupancy levels at 216 percent of official
capacity as of September 2017. Prisons and detention facilities fail to meet
basic standards of health and hygiene, and infectious disease is prevalent. Extrajudicial
killings by the police remained a problem in 2017, particularly against people
peacefully engaged in protests. Police are rarely held accountable for abuses
and killings. People can report abuse or ill treatment to the Police
Complaints, Discipline, and Internal Investigations Department (CDIID) or the
Independent Police Complaints Board (IPCB), although the effectiveness of
these agencies is hindered by resource constraints. Sierra Leone News:
Torture Police accused Betty Milton, Awoko Newspaper, 14 July 2014 awoko.org/2014/07/14/sierra-leone-news-torture-police-accused/ [accessed 14 July
2014] “At this point a
plain clothes man named Isreal then showed me a
badge saying that he was a police officer attached to the CID, but who
investigations revealed is actually attached to the Integrated Intelligence
Service (IIS). So he (Isreal) and Chernor (whose money was allegedly stolen) said I had to
give them the money or else they will torture me and take me to police. But I
told them that I was not the one and I did not steal any money.” He went on “so they
took me to my aunty’s house (where I had been when
I.B. called me to come see him) in search of the money but they did not find
the said sum. So they took me again to Tengbeh Town
where the incident happened and Israel, Chernor,
I.B., Sammy and a guy named Collier started beating me. Israel poured a
bucket of water on me and Isreal took a hot
electric iron and put it on my chest. They started beating me while I.B. was
tearing my body with a razor blade.” After they had finished
torturing him, Ade said they decided to forcefully dump him in a barrel
containing water for some time and later they took him out again and started
pouring gin, hot rub and pepper spray in his eyes “they took pictures, naked
picture of me and posted it in “what’s app” to my friends.” “They told me if I
refuse they are going to inject me with acid and I will be in pain till I
die, it was at this point that I said the money was at my house. I did this
so that they can take me to my house so that my mother will be aware.” AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL From an old article -- URL not available Article was
published sometime prior to 2015 POLICE AND SECURITY
FORCES
- In April, police killed an unarmed woman, Musu Conteh, and injured at least 11 others when workers at a
mining company held a peaceful demonstration against poor working conditions
and remuneration. The Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone investigated
the incident and released its findings in September which included
recommendations for criminal investigations and prosecutions. The government
initiated a Coroner’s Inquest into the killing but the investigation had not
concluded by the end of the year. No one was held to account. In June, police
shot and killed Alieu Sonkoh
and Ishmael Kargbo-Sillah in Wellington. A third
man was seriously injured. According to the families and community members
who witnessed the incident, the unarmed men were part of a neighbourhood watch group who were in the area where
police were looking for a vehicle. The President visited the community and
set up a Coroner’s Inquest, which closed in July. The results of the
investigation had not been made public by the end of the year. In June, a
motorcyclist was shot and killed by police in Goderich when he failed to stop
at a police checkpoint. One officer was arrested and charged with murder. The
trial continued at the end of the year. Civil society
groups called for an effective independent oversight mechanism to investigate
complaints and hold the police to account Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For more
articles:: Search Amnesty
International’s website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=sierra+leone+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 13 January 2019] Scroll
Down ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61591.htm [accessed 11
February 2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61591.htm [accessed 5 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits such practices; however, there were reports that security forces
beat and raped persons, and that police stole, extorted, and accepted bribes. Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 3 Civil
Liberties: 3 Status: Partly Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/sierra-leone [accessed 11
February 2013] LONG
URL ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 13 May
2020] The judiciary has demonstrated
a degree of independence, and a number of trials have been free and fair.
However, corruption, poor salaries, and a lack of resources threaten to
impede the courts’ future effectiveness, and the new president has yet to
carry out his pledge to improve prosecutorial independence by separating the
offices of justice minister and attorney general. Arbitrary arrests are
common, as are lengthy pretrial detentions under harsh conditions. The local
human rights organization Prison Watch reported in February 2008 that nearly
half of all inmates had not yet been sentenced. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, " Torture by Police, Forced
Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st
Century- Sierra Leone", http://gvnet.com/torture/SierraLeone.htm,
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