April 22, 2006

Grassroots activist and political prisoner Bob Molière was finally freed on Thursday, April 20, 2006, after one year and two days in pre-trial detention.

Bob Molière, a second-hand mattress salesman, helped organize peaceful demonstrations for the return of democracy until he was arrested illegally on April 18, 2006. He was first held for one month at a police commissariat where he was beaten and stomped on and interrogated about his political activities. He was later transferred to Haiti’s National Penitentiary where he was kept in a grossly overcrowded, unhygienic cell without access to adequate food, water, and medical treatment. He did not appear before a judge until 4 months after his arrest.

During his one-year imprisonment without charges, the Haitian interim government failed to produce any evidence of criminal activity against Mr. Molière. The investigating judge in the case took until now to issue an ordinance acknowledging that there are no charges against Mr. Molière and to order his immediate release.
                                                                              
On April 11, 2006, Seton Hall University School of Law Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) and the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) filed a Petition  before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on behalf of Mr. Molière challenging his illegal arrest and prolonged detention and denouncing his subjection to cruel treatment and inhuman prison conditions.

Mr. Molière’s case thus got international exposure and human rights defenders in Haiti and abroad joined forces to successfully advocate for his release. However, the vast majority of prisoners arrested and imprisoned under similar circumstances attract little public attention. Most are poor and cannot afford a lawyer. Mr. Molière’s case is a sample case which illuminates the plight of hundreds jailed without charges and proper judicial oversight.

  

Mr. Molière was not able to vote in the second round of Haiti’s parliamentary elections held on April 21, a day after his release, as the prison authorities had failed to provide him in time with his national identification card. He spent the day with his wife, six-year old daughter and four-month old son born while he was still in prison and whom Mr. Molière first saw after his release.