Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Human rights leader Daniel Dorsinvil and wife assassinated in Haiti

The leader of the Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH), Daniel Dorsinvil and his wife Girldy Lareche were killed Saturday in Canapévert, Haiti. POHDH is an association of 8 leading Haitian human rights groups. The Associated Press reports today that Haitian police spokesman Gary Desrosiers “held back on citing a motive for the killing, though he acknowledged reports that they were either killed in a robbery or targeted.” President Martelly released a statement, “deploring” the murder and called on the police to be more vigilant in combatting all forms of crime.

Antonal Mortimer, the executive secretary of POHDH, told the Haitian press that the couple had not visited a bank, as had been reported, but “even if that were the case, that is not a reason why someone should be killed.” Mortimer referred to the murder as an “attack against the human rights sector” and a “political crime.” Human rights lawyers André Michel and Louis Newton St Juste also released a statement, condemning the murder and noting that reports that Dosinvil and his wife were returning from a bank “in no case should be put forward to guarantee impunity and hide the true nature of the crime.” Further, Michel and St Juste recall that “it is a political crime to intimidate the human rights sector that is considered an inconvenience for the powers that be.”

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