The Tribune

FOREIGN Minister Fred Mitchell has branded as 'misdirected' a call by Miami mayor Tomás Regalado that the Bahamas government ‘should heed the call’ of activists who are protesting about the alleged abuse of Cuban detainees.

Mr Regalado yesterday visited Ramón Saúl Sánchez and Jesús Aléxis Gómez in Miami, two activists who have been on hunger strike in protest of alleged abuse at Carmichael Road detention centre and Fox Hill prison.

The two were under a tent in the Cuban Memorial Plaza in Little Havana, surrounded by protest signs that call on the Bahamas to ‘respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.’

According to The Miami Herald newspaper, the mayor said: “I think what they’re doing is a heroic act, and the Bahamas should heed their call. But I’m worried about their health.”

Today, Fred Mitchell, Foreign Minister, told The Tribune: "The call by the mayor is misdirected and wrong. He ought to remember that his city benefits by Bahamians spending their money in businesses over in Miami. So he should desist."

Mr Sanchez is president of the Cuban exile group ‘Democracy Movement’ which started protests in June in response to an apparent video from a cell phone allegedly showing Bahamian prison guards kicking detainees on the ground.

The Bahamas government says the video is a forgery.

The Herald reported that the mayor intended to use his own money to help Democracy Movement with the $15 it must pay the city daily for a permit to continue using the plaza.

The mayor said he has known Sánchez as a friend for 25 years, the Herald reported

Last week Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe visited Joe Garcia, US Representative for Florida’s 26th congressional district.

In a letter to Mr Garcia from Sandra Carey, the Bahamas’ Deputy Consul General in Miami, the government committed itself to address the removal of detainees from maximum security. It was also promised that these detainees would be re-interviewed.

Last night, Mr Garcia told The Tribune: “After meeting with Minister Wilchcombe last week and receiving their subsequent letters addressing the mutual agreed upon points, we continue to make daily inquiries to the Bahamian government and will continue to do so until there is a satisfactory resolution to these issues. As I previously stated, I am pleased our two countries will continue to work together as we always have.”

Pictured above are supporters of the Cuban nationals who are being held at the Detention Centre staging a demonstration in March outside the Bahamas’ Consulate in Miami.