AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

PRESS RELEASE

1 August 2006

Haiti: Bring to trial or release all polit­i­cal prisoners

Amnesty Inter­na­tional today called on the newly elected Hait­ian author­i­ties to bring to trial promptly or release all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers cur­rently held in pro­longed pre-trial deten­tion across the country.

Amnesty Inter­na­tional believes that around 100 of the more than 2,000 pris­on­ers being held with­out charge or await­ing trial in Haiti could be polit­i­cal prisoners.

The four were arrested between March 2004 and July 2005 and for­mally charged in April 2006 under the vague offence of crim­i­nal con­spir­acy (asso­ci­a­tion de mal­fai­teurs

“A fair and func­tion­ing judi­cial sys­tem is essen­tial for Haiti’s future.”