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Mauritius: "Undress and bend over"
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L'Express (Port Louis)
15 October 2007
Posted to the web 16 October 2007
DR Michael Atchia
Port Louis
The three seemingly "off-duty" police officers who went to Cyber city last week were presumably ignorant of history and fell into a trap. Moreover their action, as reported, is a case of nepotism: any official acting on behalf of a parent against non-parents is going against the elementary rules of equity (in a case involving a direct relative, any officer, interviewer or judge automatically desists). By the way what happens to those of us citizens (or as is the case today, a group of citizens) who have NO parents in the police force?
Consider these precedents that do not do honour to humanity :
"Upon arrival at the concentration camp, Jews were herded into a long barracks where they were stripped of every last piece of clothing and every belonging they owned, after which, amidst a hail of kicks and blows they were run through the camp and out into the open roll call area. Old and young alike, they were made to run and roll, up and down for hours upon hours " (1941)
If the SS guards sensed that the deceptions were not working, they responded with brute force. They beat the Jews and yelled at them to undress. Then to bend forward, in case things were hidden .
Chana, a survivor describes her arrival at Auschwitz/Birkenau concentration camp run by the Gestapo (Hitler's police) on January 29 1942:
Chana "I didn't feel the second girl taking my arm, and pricking me with a needle. She had tattooed two numbers on my arm.
She then explained to me that from this day forth, I had to memorize this number and remember it even if I was wakened during the night. My name Chana, or whoever I once was, was now erased.
She finished with me, and I was sent to another very small room, to sit on a chair. Someone took my hair, lifted it up, and within 2 minutes, I was bald. Then they took me to a third room, where a girl told me 'get undressed'.
I looked at her. What do you mean, get undressed? I'd never undressed in front of anyone in my life, except myself in the shower, and even then I would turn the key twice to lock the door.
In the end I was sent out of the room, naked, bald, and numbered to join the other women like me sitting shocked in a big hall."
Most of the detainees said in the statements that they were stripped naked upon their arrival to Section 1A of Abu Ghraib prison(in Baghdad), forced to wear women's underwear, and repeatedly humiliated in front of one another and American soldiers. They also described beatings and threats of death and sexual assault if they did not cooperate with the interrogators (detainees' statements, May 2004).
Therefore let us congratulate lawyers J.C. Bibi and P. Rengasamy for taking up the case of these 17 Call Centre employees to Court for compensation and as the case may be full apologies.
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We are also sure that the Commissioner of Police and the Minister responsible for the Interior are taking the necessary action at top level to deal with the officers responsible and to set clear rules to prevent re occurrence, so that (to cite SP Kamachi in a week end paper) "the population may once again have entire trust in its police force".
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