Guyanese questions six-day detention at Barbados airport
By Zoisa Fraser
Stabroek News
March 30, 2007
A Guyanese woman is questioning why Barbados immigration authorities had her and three others locked up at the airport for six days before they were deported, although they had their tickets to travel back to Guyana.
The four, who were picked up when police raided their house last week in search of some robbery suspects, arrived in Guyana on Tuesday night.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, Asali Haynes said that about two weeks ago a drinks truck was robbed in front of a nightclub a few corners from where she was staying and the victims told police that it was Guyanese who had committed the robbery.
According to Haynes, she was staying there with her fiancé Dwayne Forde and two women. Around 10 am last Thursday, she said, they heard a strange noise outside like heavy knocking and thought they were being attacked by bandits.
Haynes said when the men entered the house they started to run because the men were not wearing police uniforms.
Haynes said she ran towards her room with the men in hot pursuit and the door was pushed and she sustained a wound near her eye. Her fiancé managed to jump a fence, but the three women were held.
She said the men began asking them about the robbery and a stolen computer, which they believed was in the house. But Haynes said if they had robbed a drinks truck, the police should have been asking about money or drinks, not a computer.
She said they denied any knowledge of any stolen computer or the robbery and a search of the house by police unearthed nothing. "They started asking us where we from and that it how they found out that we were illegal in the country."
Haynes informed this newspaper that she has been travelling to and from the island since 2004.
She said when she visited last June she decided to start studying cosmetology but immigration officials denied her request for time to do so. However, she decided to remain in the country and pursue her studies. She had also bought an open ticket, she said, so that she could leave the island at anytime.
According to Haynes, they were taken down to the immigration department where they remained for several hours before being transported to the Grantley Adams International Airport.
At the airport, they were locked in a room and Haynes said her fiancé later joined them there.
Eight other Guyanese, she said, were also picked up from around the island and placed in the room with them. However, she said most of them left before they did, owing to the contacts they had in the immigration department.
Haynes said when they arrived in Guyana on Tuesday night immigration officials detained them. They remained at the airport for the rest of the night and the following morning they were taken to the Criminal Investigation Department, Eve Leary.
Haynes said their passports were taken and officials told them they would be kept there for about three weeks.
She is of the view that it was wrong for them to have been locked up for so long when each of them had tickets. She said they were not treated badly but it was very frustrating, as they were given no access to telephones so that they could inform relatives about their detention.
A press release issued by the Guyana Honorary Consulate in Barbados on Wednesday said a probe was made into reports that the Guyanese were not being properly fed and held for an unreasonably long period of time.
The release said the Barbados Immigration Authorities informed the Consulate that the Guyanese had violated immigration regulations and were detained and deported.
They said too that because of the unavailability of plane seats to Guyana at that time, the Guyanese were unable to leave before Wednesday.
Over the years, Guyanese visiting and working on the island have encountered a range of problems.