White House political advisor who previously spoke about human rights turns a blind eye to rampant human rights abuses in the Dominican Republic The White House Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs (IGA) Tom Perez made a high-profile trip to the Dominican Republic last week. Ostensibly a state visit, the trip had nothing to…
Last weekend, the Dominican Republic celebrated Judiciary Day, where the press lauded the judiciary’s commitment to human dignity and modernization. Yet amidst these celebrations, Judge of the Fifth Court of Instruction Rosalmy Guerrero admitted “there is an excess of preventive detention and that is part of the awareness that the Judiciary must have.” This acknowledgement…
Why is Washington Looking the Other Way? This week, people around the world commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While many governments vowed to recommit to the global cause of protecting human rights, there is no cause for celebration in the Dominican Republic. Instead, the DR faces endemic issues of…
A legal opinion recently made public from the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) detailed how prosecutor Yeni Berenice Reynoso and others in the Dominican government violated the human rights of former Attorney General Jean Rodríguez Sánchez. The U.N. body concluded that Rodríguez Sanchez’s prolonged detention without charge, the systematic interruption of his…
The United Nations has released an explosive condemnation of the Dominican Republic’s use of preventive detention and complete disregard for the rule of law. The UN’s Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) found that the Dominican government’s behavior in the case of former Attorney General Jean Rodríguez Sánchez violated Articles 3, 8,…
The inaugural meeting of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP) in Washington faced a hail of criticism towards President Joe Biden from inside his own Democratic Party and officials from Latin America who came away doubting the U.S. commitment to the region. The joint declaration signed on Friday issued by the White House includes…
This week, the White House convenes the inaugural meeting of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP) Leaders summit. The meeting will bring together the leaders of the United States, Canada, and ten countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, including the Dominican Republic. Yet the meeting comes as the Dominican Republic continues to grapple…
The just-released 2023 Investment Climate Statement on the Dominican Republic is the latest example of how the U.S. State Department can’t decide whether to tell the truth or gloss over the dangerous state of the Dominican legal and justice system. It should be no surprise. Political appointees like Secretary of State Antony Blinken and United…
Writing in the Daily Signal last week, Steven Bucci – a former Army Special Forces officer and Pentagon official – criticized the Biden Administration’s selective application of its commitments to bring home “every wrongfully detained American” as the preventive detention crisis in the Dominican Republic goes unaddressed. Bucci calls out a “double standard” in bringing…
Dominican President Luis Abinader is scheduled to come to Washington DC in early November to meet with President Biden. By all indications the White House is planning to roll out the red carpet despite a growing chorus of concerns around the Dominican Republic’s criminal justice practices, including a preventive detention crisis and wrongful imprisonment of…
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