Lluidas Vale youth in custody over a week for skin bleaching?

Á resident of Lluidas Vale in St Catherine is calling for Prime Minister Andrew Holness to intervene in a case in which police officers have detained one of her brothers for more than a week without charge, adding that the young man may end up losing the job he fought hard to recently attain.

Lluidas Vale is part of the St Catherine North Police Division, which has been under a state of public emergency that gives the security forces power to detain people for a protracted period without charge.

Reports emerged last week that a young man from the community is being detained because, as a result of skin bleaching, he no longer resembles the image on his identification card.

The Beacon, which has been trying to verify that claim, is yet to get a response from the St Catherine North Police Division, headed by Senior Superintendent of Police Beau Rigabie.

A representative of the police force’s Corporate Communications Unit, in the meantime, said the Lluidas Vale police this afternoon told him that they have no record of the said detention.

The young man’s sister, Simone Newman, said the detention smacks of injustice.

She made it clear that she has no issue with the security forces detaining her brother for questioning, but she is concerned that he may end up unemployed again because he has been in custody for too long without charge.

“True di man dem a bleach, dat nuh tell yuh seh di man dem a criminal…” Newman further said. “Dat deh youth deh nuh have nuh [criminal] record; that likkle man only have a bleaching record.”

Senior Superintendent of Police Beau Rigabie is the man in charge of the St Catherine North Police Division, which includes Lluidas Vale

Newman reasoned that young people losing their jobs as a result of unreasonably long detention will only breed more criminals.

“A long time di little man want the little work, and him get him work. Now, look how long dem have him [in detention],” she lamented.

Newman appealed: “Prime Minister Andrew Holness, you need to put a stop to this because police nuh suppose to a come and pick up people pickney just like that. Mi understand seh [police] a duh dem job; duh yuh job. But a whole heap a innocent people dem a tek up and put inna jail.”

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