Monday, September 1, 2014

Seychelles Police State

At the wrong place, at the wrong time?

A woman says the police arrested her and seized her phone without good reason before stripping her naked at the police station.



A distraught woman contacted this newspaper on Wednesday to complain about an incident that happened to her last Friday at Mont Fleuri. She says she had stepped out of her workplace to make a phone call to her child when two police officers arrested her. They seized her cellphone and ID card and she still had not gotten them back by the time she contacted this newspaper.

“For no reason, they took my phone and told me to go with them to the police station,” the woman who requested anonymity told this newspaper. The incident, she said, happened at around 2pm in Mont Fleuri when the two officers arrested her under suspicion that she was “warning criminals that the police were on their way”. The woman recounted that she later found out that there had been stolen army weapons and the police were pursuing suspects who they believed were at Mont Fleuri.

The woman was then taken to the police station where she said she was “questioned like a criminal” adding that “I have never been involved in any illegal activity.” She further told us that a female officer stripped her naked and searched her at the Mont Fleuri police station. After that, her phone and ID card were seized and they still haven’t been returned to her.

“This is normal procedure,” police spokesperson Jean Toussaint told TODAY. He added that “her ID card will surely be returned to her very soon but the phone will remain with the police until all suspicions have been cleared.” He also said that during such investigations, strict formalities were followed which would explain why the phone was seized. “Eventually the phone will be returned because it is her property,” said Mr. Toussaint. He nonetheless said that that there was no investigation into stolen army weapons contrarily to what the woman claimed. It is unknown at this point why the police arrested the woman and seized her phone.

With regards to the way the police treated the woman, Jean Toussaint says “all this is part of procedure.” The woman nonetheless said that she was still in “a state of shock”.


Source:Today