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Amnesty Inter­na­tional Calls for Action by Haiti on Abduc­tion and
Threats Against “Sep­tem­ber 30″ Human Rights Defenders

(New York) — Amnesty Inter­na­tional said today it has mobi­lized its global net­work of activists on behalf of two human rights defend­ers in Haiti, one abducted and the other fac­ing phys­i­cal threats. The orga­ni­za­tion is call­ing on the Hait­ian author­i­ties to redou­ble efforts to find Lovin­sky Pierre-Antoine, who was abducted in August, and to pro­tect Wil­son Mesilien, who has recently been threat­ened with phys­i­cal harm. The two are found­ing mem­bers of the Sep­tem­ber 30th Foun­da­tion, which has mobi­lized to defend the rights of vic­tims of the 1991–94 mil­i­tary coup.

“The Hait­ian author­i­ties have a respon­si­bil­ity under inter­na­tional law to pro­tect the legit­i­mate rights of human rights defend­ers to orga­nize and take action with­out restric­tions or fear of reprisals,” said Renata Ren­don, advo­cacy direc­tor for the Amer­i­cas for Amnesty International USA.

Amnesty Inter­na­tional is send­ing let­ters to Haiti and its embassies world­wide, urg­ing offi­cials to take action on behalf of the two men.

“The threats against Wil­son Mesilien are very seri­ous in light of the abduc­tion of his col­league Lovin­sky Pierre-Antoine,” said Ren­don. “Indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing mem­bers of the U.S. Con­gress, the U.N. Sta­bi­liza­tion Mis­sion in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and human rights and sol­i­dar­ity orga­ni­za­tions based in the United States and Great Britain have con­tacted Pres­i­dent Preval and other Hait­ian offi­cials to urge a more vig­or­ous inves­ti­ga­tion into Pierre-Antoine’s dis­ap­pear­ance. The lack of avail­able pub­lic infor­ma­tion on the investigation’s progress is dis­ap­point­ing. Amnesty Inter­na­tional activists are now demand­ing that Haiti step up its efforts to find Pierre-Antoine and pro­tect Mesilien.”

Pierre-Antoine, 54, a psy­chol­o­gist and pre­vi­ous coor­di­na­tor of the foun­da­tion, has not been seen since August 12, after he had left the com­pany of a del­e­ga­tion of human rights activists vis­it­ing Haiti. The car he was dri­ving was found aban­doned near the neigh­bor­hood, Del­mas 18.

Days before his abduc­tion, Pierre-Antoine had announced his inten­tion to stand as sen­a­tor in the elec­tions ini­tially sched­uled for Decem­ber 2007 with the Fanmi Lavalas Party.

Amnesty Inter­na­tional fears that Pierre-Antoine may have been abducted by indi­vid­u­als con­nected with the for­mer mil­i­tary because of his con­tin­ued activism in denounc­ing past human rights vio­la­tions dur­ing the 1991–1994 mil­i­tary gov­ern­ment and in gath­er­ing sig­na­tures to amend the Con­sti­tu­tion in order to elim­i­nate all pro­vi­sions for the exis­tence of a Hait­ian army.

Pierre-Antoine’s abduc­tion was report­edly made to look like a kid­nap­ping for ran­som. His fam­ily was con­tacted by his alleged abduc­tors on August 14 and asked to pay a ran­som. How­ever there has been no fur­ther con­tact from the abductors.

Dur­ing the last pres­i­dency of Jean-Bertrand Aris­tide, Pierre-Antoine was appointed Gen­eral Coor­di­na­tor of the National Office on Migra­tion. He left Haiti into exile dur­ing the tran­si­tional gov­ern­ment and returned in Feb­ru­ary 2006.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The Sep­tem­ber 30th Foun­da­tion (Fon­dasyon Trant Sep­tan) is named after the date of the mil­i­tary coup in 1991 dur­ing which Pres­i­dent Jean-Bertrand Aris­tide was ousted. At least 3,000 indi­vid­u­als were killed dur­ing the mil­i­tary regime between 1991–1994. Since 1996, Fon­dasyon mem­bers have marched weekly in cen­tral Port-au-Prince and sev­eral other Hait­ian towns to press for an end to impunity for past abuses and repa­ra­tion for vic­tims of the 1991–1994 mil­i­tary coup and for the vic­tims of the tran­si­tional gov­ern­ment of 2004–2006. The group also cam­paigns for the total abo­li­tion of the Hait­ian army through con­sti­tu­tional reform and has gath­ered sig­na­tures toward this goal.

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http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?lang=e&id=ENGUSA20071220002