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HRB: Nation’s stance on immigrants an embarrassment on the world stage “The thin excuse that they are simply respecting the laws of The Bahamas isn’t fooling anyone” NASSAU, BAHAMAS Local activist organization Human Rights Bahamas (HRB) yesterday cried shame on Immigration Minister Elsworth Johnson’s recent comments on the planned demolition of shantytown structures on Abaco. The issue of unregulated communities, otherwise known as shantytowns, in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas has been long-standing. The matter has been exasperated on Abaco to some extent in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian in September 2019, which nearly wiped out one of the largest shantytown communities The Mudd. ....
(PHOTO VIA SHUTTERSTOCK) NASSAU, BAHAMAS Human Rights Bahamas (HRB) has lauded the recently launched National Election Debate Series as deepening democracy, and encouraged all serious politicians to take advantage of the opportunity to participate. The series, hosted by the University of The Bahamas (UB) in conjunction with Verizon Media Group, the parent company of Eyewitness News, kicked off with a youth debate last night. HRB in a statement said: “Human Rights Bahamas supports the ethos of transparency and frank, open discussion symbolized by national debates, including national political debates at the highest level.” It added: “Debates facilitate honest and serious discussion about the most important national issues. They bring leaders closer to the people and aid in creating an atmosphere of participatory democracy. ....
Save this story for later. On August 31, 2019, Nadia, a stoic thirty-nine-year-old in pigtails, heard a voice through a loudspeaker on a vehicle circling the Mudd, her tranquil neighborhood in the Bahamas. “Seek shelter!” the voice said. For days, Nadia’s two sons, aged six and ten, had been watching news reports about an incoming storm called Hurricane Dorian, which broadcasters warned would cause historic destruction on the islands. “Mom, a big one’s coming,” Nadia’s ten-year-old, a skinny, bright-eyed math whiz named Kesnel, said. “We’d better board up the windows.” The next day, as the storm descended, Nadia and her sons ran to a local church for refuge. Water rushed over the chapel’s floorboards and rose past the children’s knees. Nadia wished that she could have fled the Bahamas before Dorian hit, but, like several thousands of her fellow-Haitians living there, she was undocumented, and wouldn’t have been allowed to return. (To protect them from ....
A breach of any one person’s rights is a cancerous decay of all of our rights A small Haitian sailing sloop with dozens of human beings onboard, landed in Clarence Town. The humans were all taken into custody by immigration officers and the proud residents of the island. The sloop was promptly burnt to a crisp. This “invasion” aroused the ire of the islanders. In social media, the Haitian haters went wild and let loose a tirade of xenophobic vituperation. One would have thought that the end of days was near for The Bahamas! As usual, always on the hunt to blame, they also turned their guns on the “persons sympathetic to migrants”; and I was of course named as one such “sympathizer.” ....
Minister of Financial Services, Trade and Industry and Immigration and Yamacraw MP Elsworth Johnson. NASSAU, BAHAMAS Minister of Immigration Elsworth Johnson said the government has “taken a stand” on access to the fishing sector and while there are those who have criticized amendments to fisheries and immigration regulations as discriminatory, the Constitution allows the government to “legally discriminate”. The Fisheries Act, 2020, which was passed in the Senate this week, prevents the foreign spouses of Bahamians from engaging in commercial fishing. “This is not a matter of recent vintage,” Johnson told the media. “The Constitution allows it. Persons can’t just come and decide they want to be an MP and you’re not a citizen or a senator or a police officer or any varied number of areas. ....