Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/SolomonIslands.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in the Solomon
Islands. 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: Solomon Islands 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/solomon-islands/
[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. Impunity was not a significant problem in the security forces. Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/solomon-islands/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 13 May
2020] IS THERE AN
INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY?
- The judiciary has a reputation for independence, though it is badly underresourced, and case backlogs persist. The Court of
Appeal is mainly reliant on foreign judges. DOES DUE PROCESS
PREVAIL IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL MATTERS? - Deficiencies in due process are somewhat
common, but are mainly a result of limited resources and capacity
constraints. Due to case backlogs, the
country’s prisons house many inmates on remand awaiting trial. IS THERE PROTECTION
FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR AND
INSURGENCIES?
- Rebuilding the police force has been the major focus of the Australian-led
Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), which was
initially established in 2003 to maintain peace between the country’s two
dominant ethnic groups, the Gwale and Malaitans, following a conflict. The local police force
was disarmed in 2003, and its paramilitary unit, the Police Field Force
(which had participated in a coup in June 2000) was disbanded. Some two
thirds of the police officers serving in the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force
have resigned, retired or been dismissed since 2003, and an extensive
training program has created a much more youthful force, with better
representation of officers from across the country, and a better gender
balance. In 2016, RAMSI undertook a limited rearmament of the Solomon Islands
police force. RAMSI concluded its mission in the Solomon Islands in 2017, and
almost all of its associated officials had left the islands by year’s end. Solomon Islands.
End Impunity Through Universal Jurisdiction Amnesty
International AI, 7 December 2009, Index number: ASA 43/002/2009 www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa43/002/2009/en/ Download the Report at www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/48000/asa430022009en.pdf [accessed 13 January
2019] Solomon Islands has
not provided universal jurisdiction over genocide nor has it defined crimes
against humanity, war crimes, torture,
extrajudicial executions or enforced disappearances as crimes under national
law. Therefore, Solomon Islands is currently a safe
haven from prosecution in its courts, and from extradition to any country, for
foreigners who are responsible for such crimes. Amnesty
International accuses Solomon Is police of torture Australian
Broadcasting Corporation ABC News, 1 March 2003 www.abc.net.au/news/2003-03-01/amnesty-international-accuses-solomon-is-police-of/1222864 [accessed 9 Feb
2014] Amnesty
International claims that police in Solomon Islands have tortured women on
the island of Guadalcanal, severely beating them with heated wire and bush
cane. At least nine
people, including four police officers, have been killed in the operation and
Amnesty International claims special constables and volunteers armed by the
police have tortured suspected supporters of Mr Keke, burned down their homes
and killed their livestock. Amnesty
alleges that some special constables have severely beaten the wives of a
number of Mr Keke's men using heated wire and bush cane. The international human rights group says
these abuses present a challenge for the new Police Commissioner, Bill
Morrell, from the United Kingdom who arrived in the Solomons in late January
pledging to uphold human rights. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For more
articles:: Search Amnesty
International’s website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=solomon+islands+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 » 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78791.htm [accessed 12
February 2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61627.htm [accessed 5 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits such practices, and there were no confirmed reports of such
practices by the police during the year. There were a few allegations by
detainees that they were mistreated by police during questioning. 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- the Solomon
Islands", http://gvnet.com/torture/SolomonIslands.htm, [accessed
<date>] |
