Rights of Arrested Persons
Arbitrary arrest is illegal, but occurs, and although warrants are required under the law, most arrests are made without them, and some warrants were issued in irregular ways. In 2010, “nly high-profile cases that were scrutinized publicly were known to have been properly handled,” according to the U.S. State Department. Although the law requires that detainees be charged in court within 3 days of arrest (or, in some cases, 10), authorities routinely skirt this rule. The police lack equipment and are incapable of doing proper investigations or controlling riots. Police corruption is a major challenge, with officers dropping charges or making false arrests in return for payments, and demanding bribes at checkpoints on roads. Police brutality has declined, however, and so has impunity. Thanks to training in conduct and human rights, which is accomplished with the help of UN advisors, police are behaving more professionally and responsibly.
The 2011 annual report by the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone praised “the stride taken by SLP
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In Sierra Leone
Famous quotes containing the words rights, arrested and/or persons:
“In our governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of government contrary to the sense of the constituents, but from the acts in which government is the mere instrument of the majority.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Sabbath. A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.”
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“One of the dangers of the American artist is that he finds himself almost exclusively thrown in with persons more or less in the arts. He lives among them, eats among them, quarrels with them, marries them.”
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