Post 271.
Painting by Susan Mains
Justice for Yugge!
There are some ways of wielding power that should end a political dynasty, for they are so cynical, manipulative and unethical that collective disgust should rise up with toppling momentum. The injustice experienced by 22-year-old Yugge Farrell in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is a blatent example of such advantageousness in our midst, and we should not let it occur without consequences.
Yugge was charged for using abusive language to Karen Duncan-Gonsalves, wife of Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves, daughter in law of Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, and Senior Crown Counsel in the Attorney General’s office. After Yugge pleaded not guilty, the prosecutor requested that she be sent to a psychiatric facility for evaluation. The magistrate agreed without any evidence of mental health issues presented to justify court-ordered evaluation and confinement. Indeed, if Yugge’s mental health were an issue, the charge and court process should not have proceeded as it did in the first place.
Yugge spent three weeks in a mental health centre. According to newspapers reports, she was administered a cocktail of medication outside of the court order and against her will, without proper or independent evaluation, without trained psychiatrists on staff, and despite the fact that the Mental Health Act only speaks to observation and evaluation and not to involuntary admission and treatment.
The St. Vincent and Grenadines Human Rights Association, a petition hosted online by Code Red for Gender Justice and continuing to be signed by hundreds across the region, and a collective statement created by Womantra in Trinidad and Tobago all point to misuse of political power, questionable judicial process and integrity, and human rights violation in this situation.
The petition asks whether commitment to a mental institution for use of insulting language is a regular occurrence or, instead, irresponsible and heavy-handed state force. Yugge has publicly claimed she was in a romantic relationship with Minister Gonsalves up to 2016, but as the petition points out, “state entities can easily use the excuse of mental instability to vilify, discredit, and institutionalize any critic or person(s) deemed a threat or embarrassment to the established political order”.
Regional calls are therefore for a formal investigation into the decision to detain and medicate Yugge Farrell, an immediate review of the Mental Health Act in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the dropping of all charges, and public resistance to such state persecution to silence truth.
Shockingly, Prime Minister and Minister of Legal Affairs Ralph Gonsalves, despite his clear conflict of interest in protecting his political heir, has been brazenly commenting on the case in media. On January 24th, SVG’s iWitness News described him as arguing that “a magistrate can decide to commit someone to the psychiatric hospital based on information that the prosecutor gives the magistrate outside of the court proceedings and which is not disclosed to either the defendant or to their lawyer”.
Ralph Gonsalves is no neutral bystander here and himself has been accused of sexual predation and harassment. What we are seeing in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is another cover-up strategy to hide sexual impropriety by powerful men in government.
As Leave out Violence in SVG (LOVNSVG), a group which focuses on gender-based violence and violence against women has put it, “Yugge’s story highlights the subjection of the poor and those on the margins to the whims and fancies of the political elite and ruling class”.
If the region had not been horrified and acted in solidarity, Yugge’s experience and confinement may have passed with impunity. Now that Yugge has been released on bail, her defense, protection and wellness are priorities. Additionally, as Womantra put it, we are “closely watching the further conduct of this case and stand ready to speak out against the slightest hint of malfeasance by any agent of the state”.
Find and sign the petition on the Code Red for Gender Justice webpage. Support the fundraising campaign for Yugge at: https://www.gofundme.com/justiceforyugge.
https://www.facebook.com/justiceforyugge
http://www.looptt.com/content/update-yugge-farrell-relieved-be-granted-bail-2
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/1 /24/the_dark_side_of_the_sunny_caribbean.html
https://www.iwnsvg.com/2018/01/17/ralph-is-wrong/
https://www.iwnsvg.com/2018/01/25/yugge-could-spend-years-in-psychiatric-hospital-lawyer/
https://www.iwnsvg.com/2018/01/23/farrell-given-antipsychotic-drugs-against-lawyers-advice-video/
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/opinion/st-vincent-jamaica-and-a-tale-of-two-entitled-families-in-politics_123551?profile=1444%3Fprofile%3D1444
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