DLEAG needs to explain
This narration by DLEAG should be received with a huge pinch of salt.
From there narration it would appear that this victim, Sara is a notorious drug pusher who they claim was arrested with 88 wraps of marijuana. Yet since this man was brutally arrested on September 13, no charges were placed on him. Rather Sara spent 2 to 3 days in hospital and then briefly detained and then bailed. Since then until September 27 when his terrible ordeal became public, the boy has been home nursing his wounds on his heals, hands, buttocks and genitalia inflicted on him by drug enforcement agents.
Rather, he would occasionally receive calls from DLEAG officers from Bansang to report for bail which he cannot do because of his injuries. DLEAG never took responsibility to ensure that the boy has full medical attention.
In this story, DLEAG only seeks to further criminalize and victimize the boy by exposing his alleged drug activities but failing to speak to the gross violations meted out on him. In other words, DLEAG is seeking to divert public attention away from the abusive nature of its officers against a human being. This tantamount to covering up the gross abuse of human rights by their officers.
DLEAG has not shown any pictures or video to indicate that they faced a riotous situation while arresting Sara, to validate their claim. There has been no news from any media outlet about a riotous situation in Brikamaba on September 13. How come the Brikamaba police and the DLEAG officers were unable to contain that situation, yet DLEAG did not ask for reinforcements from the police and the military in Brikamaba itself, Bansang or Janjanbureh or Kudang? How true is this riotous situation?
Citizens must be interested in this case because there is an abuse of power and an incidence of torture. The Constitution prohibits torture and degrading treatment in all circumstances and at all times. Hence what DLEAG officers did to Sara is a gross violation of the Constitution.
Hence citizens must not accept and allow DLEAG to shift our minds to only seeing Sara as a criminal and forget about the fact that Sara is a human being who has rights which must be protected at all times regardless of his alleged criminality and DLEAG is under obligation to not only protect those rights but also to avoid damaging them in the first place!
Therefore, this story by DLEAG should be received with a huge pinch of salt! The issue is not about the alleged drug activities of Sara. Instead, the story is about how public officers took it upon themselves to brutally and mercilessly unleash physical force on a citizen leading to serious injuries in total disregard of his rights that are protected by the Constitution.
DLEAG has a disciplinary mechanism and they must be told to use that mechanism to diligently and thoroughly investigate its officers in this matter. They must do that with transparency and responsibility and share their findings publicly and the sanctions they will impose on those rogue officers. This is what citizens must demand of DLEAG.
Madi Jobarteh
