Language

Almost no prisoners have been convicted of a crime

Submitted December 20, 2004 - 11:58 am by Benjamin Melançon
The demonstrators' charge of repression and discription of their jailed fellows as political prisoners is given additional credence by Reed Lindsay's article and, especially, one underreported fact contained within it: hardly any prisoners in the national penitentiary (where dozens were killed) have been convicted of any crime.

Prisoners and police say the riot was motivated by the decision to transfer some detainees to another penitentiary, combined with mounting frustration at the slow progress of their legal cases. Only 17 of around 1,100 prisoners at the national penitentiary have been convicted of a crime, and many detainees have not seen a judge.

Again I urge all who have not read Lindsay's article in yesterday's Observer (the weekend edition of the United Kingdom's Guardian) to do so now.

NOTE: There does appear to be an editing error in the second-to-last paragraph, making a sentence nonsense.  I e-mailed the Observor to let them know:

Dear Stephen Pritchard, readers' editor for The Observer:

The excellent, excellent article by Reed Lindsay on the police's massacre of (unconvicted) rebelling prisoners under the coup government in Haiti ("Revealed: Haiti bloodbath that left dozens dead in jail" at
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story /0,6903,1376873,00.html ) appears to contain an editing error in the second-to-last paragraph, second sentence:

"Among the seven dead confirmed by the justice of the peace is a police spokeswoman Gessy Coicou, the official death toll is now 10, as three prisoners wounded in the riot and its aftermath have died since 1 December."

It just doesn't make grammatical or logical sense the way it is.  As I am directing people to the on-line copy of the article, I'd appreciate a prompt correction.

Thank you for publishing such courageous reporting, and for your attention to this apparent editing error.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Melançon
Massachusetts, USA

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