Captive in Canada

Injustice in Canada (13)

14-feb-08

13. Shareef locked up in solitary …

“Lock’em up…shut’em up…” – The Guards have Spoken

On Feb 11, 08, around 5:15pm, the phone rang; a familiar number. It was Shareef’s collect call from his detention place. I accepted the call and started talking. Shareef’s voice was not normal. He seemed upset and agitated. I asked what happened. He said that one of the semi-human guards has created a scene to lock him up in solitary confinement for few days. He then hung up.

More than a year ago, a semi-human guard called “Ted” said to Shareef: You and your parents should be locked away like animals. At the time, I gave the staff in MapleHurst a hard lesson and made them feel ashamed of having such a semi-human person on staff. This week, exactly on Monday, Mr Murphy, a decent and understanding lieutenant was removed from the unit and was replaced by rotating lieutenants. However, the semi-human guard was up for rotation and it was his first day in unit 1K. In the morning, he denied Shareef his turn in staying out for the whole day to help others; an assignment that is considered a privilege. Then, when the nurse came to give Shareef his heart pill, he asked him to prove that he swallowed the pill! Shareef raise an eye browse on this stupid request. The semi-human guard claimed that Shareef defied an order and he was sent to the solitary! The real reason was that shareef wrote a letter that morning to the prison supervisor, complaining about the behavior of that Ted. It was obvious that he wanted to punish him for that complaint.

Shareef is still confined in solitary.

With the ongoing exploitation of the “presumed innocents”, and all the delay tactics which the system is adding to the pre-trial punishment that is now at full force, another dimension of sadism and inhumanity; presented by the some prison guards of Maple Hurst, was added to the equation.

Although some of the guards are professional and reasonable, it is evident that something is fundamentally wrong with the way some of them were trained and educated for the job they undertake. Contrary to what one might think, such job requires a high sensitivity, people skills and understanding of human nature to be able to deal with the normally confused and unfortunate people, and help them correct their way in life. That is why these institutions are called “correctional centers”. But, with our experience over the last two years, they should be called “make worse centres”! Some of the so-called prison guards in that place are nothing but psychopathic monsters that were trained to torture whoever they are supposedly guarding.

Failure in joining the Police force, and alternatively joining the prison guard career, dented their psychological profile and created a psychosomatic problem and sense of humiliation. It also seems that the training they get enhances such injured psychology.

It seems that, with such poor education and wrong training, the environment in these institutions helps creating false feeling of importance, and self-inflated personality. Dressed in a uniform, and giving orders to inmates, makes such characters do not distinguish between the accused and still “presumed innocent” and criminals who are already sentenced. On the other hand, they don’t understand that their job is not “to punish”, but “to guard”. If a person is charged, the imprisonment that is instated by court is the punishment, period. No additional sentence should be inflicted on the prisoner. Humiliation, degradation or torture is not part of the court indictment. If a person is detained and accused, he is “innocent” until courts prove otherwise. Under which human law an innocent person is subjected to such atrocities and degradation. What if the courts discharged the accusations? How such actions would be justified?

The question is no more whether these actions are unjust. The question now is how long such injustices will last?

To be continued….

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February 14th, 2008 News | one comment | Email it! |  Print This Post | 221 views