Miami Her­ald Edi­to­r­ial, Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 2, 2006

The U.S.-backed tran­si­tional gov­ern­ment in Haiti should have already released the Rev. Ger­ard Jean-Juste from prison. Now that the Catholic priest has devel­oped leukemia, Hait­ian Prime Min­is­ter Ger­ard Latortue should waste no time in free­ing him. The Rev. Jean-Juste should be allowed to seek med­ical atten­tion in the United States, and not only for human­i­tar­ian rea­sons. His release also would be a step toward reha­bil­i­tat­ing a judi­cial sys­tem tainted by human-rights abuses, cor­rup­tion and the false impris­on­ment of polit­i­cal opponents.

A promi­nent priest and vocal sup­porter of deposed Pres­i­dent Jean-Bertand Aris­tide, the Rev. Jean-Juste hasn’t been shy about crit­i­ciz­ing the tran­si­tional gov­ern­ment in ser­mons and on radio shows.

What­ever his pol­i­tics, though, he should have the right to express his opin­ions in a coun­try that is try­ing to build a democ­racy. Yet he is only one of many gov­ern­ment crit­ics lan­guish­ing in Hait­ian jails, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Yvon Nep­tune being another. Mean­while, noto­ri­ous thugs and vio­lent gangs run free.

Last year the Rev. Jean-Juste spent seven weeks in jail accused of incit­ing vio­lence, only to be released after a judge found that the charges were base­less. Now he has been jailed for more than five months in con­nec­tion with a mur­der in Haiti com­mit­ted while he was vis­it­ing Miami. Amnesty Inter­na­tional has des­ig­nated him a pris­oner of con­science, “detained solely because he has peace­fully exer­cised his right to free­dom of expression.”

Early this month a U.S. doc­tor exam­ined Rev. Jean-Juste and said he may have leukemia. Hait­ian author­i­ties said their doc­tors found no can­cer. Last week, a promi­nent Har­vard Med­ical School pro­fes­sor vis­ited the Rev. Jean-Juste in prison and took blood sam­ples that were ana­lyzed in Miami. Dr. Paul Farmer, who runs hos­pi­tals in Haiti, con­firmed that the Rev. Jean-Juste has devel­oped chronic lym­pho­cytic leukemia, a can­cer that could develop into a more-virulent strain.

If he is to have any chance against this dis­ease, the Rev. Jean-Juste needs treat­ment in the United States, and that treat­ment needs to start now. He can­not hope to live with a com­pro­mised immune sys­tem in Haiti’s National Pen­i­ten­tiary, where med­ical care and hygiene are vir­tu­ally nonexistent.

U.S. diplo­mats should use their con­sid­er­able influ­ence to per­suade the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment to release the Rev. Jean-Juste and to facil­i­tate his access to treat­ment in the United States. Haiti’s fledg­ling democ­racy doesn’t need its best known polit­i­cal pris­oner to die in jail.