Violence against escaped prisoners: what the Fiji Times won’t print, and the Fiji Sun edited

........We sympathise with the Police Force who come under huge pressure whenever prisoners escape, when we all know that it is society which ultimately creates the criminals and the crimes, which we then demand the Police Force deal with.

But a just society has to ensure that escaped prisoners, however badly they may have treated society, are also given a fair trial by our judiciary, and suitably punished if they are found guilty,  but according to law.

Prisoners also have human rights and they also have loved ones, who are often filled with despair and shame at the crimes that their family members commit.

 The condemning public might think more about the message and not shoot the messenger, Shamima Ali, who has been a brave Commissioner for Human Rights of all people in Fiji, prisoners or otherwise.

However much pain escaped prisoners may cause us (and they surely do), for us to deny their human rights to justice according to the Fiji laws, is to become inhuman ourselves.