Last week, the Dominican Republic’s National Public Defense Office (ONDP) released its 2023 Prison and Detention Report, which further revealed the dire conditions inmates face while in the country’s penitentiary system. The report underscored a deteriorating situation that is “far from improving” at the hands of the government, according to Rodolfo Valentín, Director of the…
The Dominican news outlet Hoy has reported a harrowing reason why 389 Dominican prisoners remain in jail despite having completed their sentences: they must pay a “freedom fee.” This new outrage from the Public Ministry is more evidence of disregard for Dominican law, which clearly states that continued imprisonment under such conditions is reserved only…
Geraldo Luis was ordered released from prison in 2014. Prosecutors, judges and prison officials left him to rot there for ten more years. Rodolfo Valentín Santos, Director of the Dominican Republic’s National Public Defense Office (ONDP), reported yesterday that despite receiving a release order in 2014, Geraldo Luis was abandoned by the entire DR justice…
Listin Diario, a leading daily paper in the Dominican Republic, reports that the Dominican Public Ministry requested preventive detention orders in 98% of all coercive measures (i.e. before charges were filed) during the first four months of 2024. This is not only a clear violation of Dominican law but of international standards on human rights…
The government of the Dominican Republic is continuing to push back against criticism of the worsening human rights abuses in the country’s justice system. The Abinader government is now attempting to deflect attention away from the internationally condemned human rights violations committed by the Public Ministry. Its allies are taking a similar approach. Make no…
Nelson Mandela famously stated, “no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” In honor of Nelson Mandela International Day, the Dominican Justice Initiative again shines a light on the dire human rights abuses…
New “Preventive” Prison Means Human Rights Violations on a Bigger Scale Dominican President Luis Abinader announced last week the construction of a new prison specifically for those arrested, often without being charged, under preventive detention orders. In so doing the Dominican government sent a clear signal to its people: the preventive detention crisis will continue…
Germán’s Comments Cast Doubt About the Independence of Her Office The Attorney General of the Dominican Republic, Miriam Germán Brito, told a group of media executives last that she will leave her position on August 16, indicating she was sidelined by others within the Public Ministry on key actions, including public statements by her own…
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States (OAS) has published more documented evidence of the serious human rights violations taking place in the justice system of the Dominican Republic in its annual report on human rights in the region. The IACHR report is the latest in a series of…
The Dominican College of Journalists (CDP) joined top reportersand newspaper editorials in condemning threats of retaliation against critics Various news outlets and a leading journalism association in the Dominican Republic accused the Office of the Attorney General at the Public Ministry of launching “a clear threat to freedom of the press” when it issued a…
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