OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Venezue­lan mi­grants de­tained at a bar in St James are now be­ing al­lowed to leave the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port even as in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions con­demned their de­ten­tion and the man­ner in which it was done.

The re­lease of the mi­grants comes af­ter a protest by them on Mon­day, where they de­mand­ed ac­cess to wa­ter and es­sen­tial ameni­ties.

Some 196 mi­grants were de­tained at Apex Sports Bar dur­ing a par­ty on Sun­day.

How­ev­er, the ex­act num­ber of mi­grants re­leased was not con­firmed by Guardian Me­dia up to late yes­ter­day evening.

At­tor­ney Criston J Williams, who rep­re­sents some of the de­tained mi­grants, com­mend­ed the Gov­ern­ment for re­leas­ing his clients who hold UN­HCR iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards.

“I can say that when per­sons hold­ing that UN­HCR card of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion were re­leased and what­ev­er or­der of su­per­vi­sion that was giv­en, that’s a pos­i­tive step in the right di­rec­tion, it’s a sign of good­will and good trust here from the Gov­ern­ment ba­si­cal­ly, I can say that,” he said.

Williams, how­ev­er, ex­pressed con­cerns over the use of the He­li­port, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of the re­cent al­le­ga­tions sur­round­ing the fa­cil­i­ty.

Mean­while, in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al hu­man rights bod­ies have joined the con­ver­sa­tion sur­round­ing the de­ten­tion of mi­grants.

The Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights (CCHR) ex­pressed deep con­cern about the raid at the bar in St James which led to the de­ten­tion of al­most 200 Venezue­lan mi­grants, asy­lum seek­ers, and refugees.

The CCHR said the op­er­a­tion vi­o­lat­ed due process, in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights in­stru­ments, and the rule of law.

It al­so called for the ur­gent need for com­pre­hen­sive leg­is­la­tion to guide the State’s re­sponse and en­sure the pro­tec­tion of hu­man rights for all in­di­vid­u­als in the coun­try.

The Pan-Amer­i­can and Caribbean Union for Hu­man Rights al­so is­sued a state­ment ex­press­ing their strong con­dem­na­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s “dis­re­gard for in­ter­na­tion­al le­gal oblig­a­tions con­cern­ing the hu­man rights of mi­grants and refugees”. It crit­i­cised what it called the xeno­pho­bic ac­tions to­wards Venezue­lan mi­grants..

Ef­forts to reach Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds for a com­ment yes­ter­day on the is­sue were un­suc­cess­ful.