By RUPERT MISSICK Jr

POLICE abuse, a poorly functioning judicial system, trial delays, lengthy pretrial detention, and witness intimidation were cited as the most serious human rights issues facing the Bahamas, according to a newly released 2012 human rights report from the US State Department.

Other human rights problems included poor detention conditions; corruption; violence and discrimination against women; sexual abuse of children; and discrimination based on ethnic descent, sexual orientation, or HIV status.

This past month The Bahamas was named by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees among three states in the Caribbean that do not allow women to confer nationality on their children on the same terms as fathers.

In The Bahamas, children born in the country to either a Bahamian father or mother acquire Bahamian nationality; however, only children born abroad to Bahamian fathers, not mothers, can acquire Bahamian nationality. The same applies in Barbados and Suriname.

In this most recent report, the US State Department acknowledged that the government took action against police officers accused of abuse of power, and there was not a widespread perception of impunity.

The report stated that there were occasional reports of fatal shootings and questionable deaths of suspects in police custody.

“Bystanders at some shootings claimed that police were too quick to use their firearms and, in some instances, declared that police officers were unprofessional and in need of additional training,” the report said.

The report acknowledged that the police investigated all such incidents and referred them to a coroner’s court for further evaluation and acknowledged the two fatalities in police operations during the year.

On March 20, witnesses accused a police corporal of fatally shooting an unarmed man on Crooked Island during a cookout.

“Police authorities transferred the police officer to Nassau, but the government declined to provide an update on the investigation,” the report said.

On June 9, 22-year-old Tyrone Saunders died in police custody at the Central Detective Unit. His mother claimed he was in good health when police arrested him and that they killed him while in custody.

A coroner’s investigation reported that Saunders died of a heart attack.

On June 6, a court found police officer Donovan Gardiner guilty of beating a suspect (held in custody on a minor traffic offence) with a baseball bat, resulting in injuries that led to his death in 2007. The judge sentenced Gardiner to 10 years in prison.

The report pointed out that although the government declined to provide more recent data, in 2011 the coroner’s court resolved 1,278 cases and faced a backlog of 846 cases, including a few pending cases involving police shootings.