Does Curaçao adhere
to human rights?
Dear Editor,
Last week Thursday and Friday, six Venezuelans have been arrested by the police. The press and other stakeholders were kept far away. There is great uncertainty about the fate of these people, including a sergeant of the Venezuelan army and various civil servants.
The military has been able to report via a local journalist that there are more refugees and confirms they have been brutally arrested and have no chance to make their rights known. The police are threatening to send them to the Venezuelan consulate. They are now behind bars in the barracks at the Curaçao prison.
Curaçao is withholding their right to tell their flight story in order to determine whether these people are at risk if they are deported. That would be a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which forbids countries to return people if their lives are at risk.
The big question is whether Curaçao wants to be a rogue state or whether it wants to uphold human rights in line with the civilized world.
Dick Drayer
