17th August, 2015
Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
Rivers Police Command has dismissed the claims that public parade of suspects violates their fundamental human rights.
The Commissioner of Police, Chris Ezike, made the clarification in radio program in Port Harcourt monitored by our correspondent, noting that, his command is relying on a Court of Appeal judgment which declared that parading suspects publicly and on television does in anyway violate the rights.
Ezike said despite the court judgment, other people have diverse opinion on the issue but he stated that his command will continue to parade suspects and if any person or suspect feel their human rights have been violated they should challenge it”.
“We’ll continue to parade suspects if anybody feels that rights are being violated he knows where to go and we’ll meet meet him there”.
The Rivers state Police Commissioner has been under severe criticisms by a Port Harcourt-based human rights lawyer, Mr Ken Atsewete, who argued that parading suspects, including a traditional ruler is a violation of their fundamental rights of being presumed innocent and fair hearing by a competent court of law until pronounced guilty.
On regulation complaints of members of the public that some policemen violated their fundamental rights, Ezike said: “We have about 380,000 policemen in the country it is not impossible that once in a while there could be a major leakage in the confidence pipe built between Police and members of the public and could take also miles back so we’ll continue to strive that we serve the public better”.