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  • 2 months ago


While queries to the Homeland Security Minister as it pertains to SOE detainees continue to go unanswered, President of the Prisons Officers Association, Gerard Gordon, is appealing to the authorities to properly manage the situation, to avoid what happened back in 2011. Rynessa Cutting has more.
Transcript
00:00As at November 4th, 98 people had been held under preventative detention orders, according to information from the TTPS.
00:09The SOE was declared in July and has since been extended twice into January of next year.
00:15It means several of the detainees have spent and may spend months in detention without charge.
00:21What we would hope is that we don't have a repeat of the last SOE that we had.
00:30I think it would be 2011, if I'm not mistaken, where at the completion of the SOE, all of the individuals who were not charged were released.
00:44And then we had all of these matters be in place before the court where people would have sued the state.
00:53On Friday, the SOE tribunal issued a release informing that it has been carrying out its duties as required
01:01and has submitted several reports to the Minister of Homeland Security with recommendations as it pertains to the detainees.
01:09Despite queries from the media, the minister has not indicated what is the next course of action.
01:16Meantime, the Prisons Officers Association president says, as it pertains to prisons officers, they are following due process.
01:24We hold them utilizing at least the minimum rules as it relates to incarcerated individuals.
01:32So they must be fed, they must be allowed opportunity for at least some sort of what we call airing or recreation, medical care and what not.
01:48Last week, reports surfaced that detainees had embarked on a hunger strike.
01:53However, Gordon was not willing to confirm this report.
01:57We stay clear of those sort of labels because we have systems which we employ.
02:07We only consider our diet passed or refused if when we serve the following meal that we meet the previous meal untouched.
02:25Sometimes when people say that they pass and they jail food, but they may have crackers, they may have snacks, they may have cornflakes.
02:35So it's not that they not eat it, they're just not eating the jail food.
02:40So that is why we kind of, I would like, I would like to stay away from confirming this talk about a hunger strike.
02:49Renasa Cutting, TV6 News.
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