All over the world people are being unfairly detained for a variety of reasons such as ‘causing political unrest’ which really just means speaking out about issues like human rights violation or for simply being different. A lot of third world countries (and some that aren’t) still practice this today. Unfair detainment violates the UN Human Right ‘No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile’, yet it is estimated that at least 3.2 million people around the world are being held in prison without a trial at any given time, which also violates that right.

The Government and law enforcement are often behind unjust detainments. They lock innocent people up for no reason, or arrest the first subject in a case without opening a proper investigation. Either way, prisons are full of people who shouldn’t be there. People who are unfairly imprisoned are often subject to various forms of physical and psychological torture, meant to either punish them or get them to give a false confession. The Government locks people up for ‘civil unrest’ which is another way of saying they were exercising their right to Freedom of Speech. Law enforcement sometimes locks people up because they’re too overwhelmed with cases to find the real culprit, and since most cases in certain countries the fairness of trials (due to things such as false confessions) is debatable, innocent people can go to jail for crimes they didn’t commit.

How would you feel if this happened to you? There are laws that could be created, or laws that already exist that need to be enforced, but barely anyone is doing anything. Why don’t you? If we all say something, Governments will have to pay attention to what’s happening and help make this world safe for everyone, where people don’t have to be scared and the prisons are filled with the guilty instead of the innocent.

Here are some links with more information:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/detention/

https://peopleslawoffice.com/issues-and-cases/wrongful-conviction/

https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/11/05/iran-protesters-sentenced-unfair-trials

https://www.ire.org/resource-center/stories/?q=Unfair%20trials

https://www.amnesty.org/en/search/?issue=1606