PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "In a landmark 2013 settlement, Ontario acknowledged the terrible harm caused by solitary confinement — 22 hours or more a day in a six-by-nine-foot cell. It committed to banning solitary for inmates with mental illnesses, except as a rare last resort, and imposing a 15-day limit for everyone else. But the province has not lived up to those basic and necessary obligations. Solitary confinement is still vastly overused to put troubled inmates out of sight and out of mind, or as a way to maintain security in the face of understaffing or lack of mental health care inside prisons. Ontario’s highest court has said solitary is an outrage to “standards of decency and amounts to cruel and unusual treatment.” It cannot be a fix-all for the challenges of running a prison. Faqiri was held in solitary for days as his schizophrenia symptoms were clearly getting worse. He needed help, but that’s not what he got from his guards or the Lindsay jail."
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EDITORIAL: “Ontario must hold those responsible for Soleiman Faqiri’s death to account,” published by The Toronto Star on August 11, 2021.
GIST: "Soleiman Faqiri struggled with schizophrenia for 11 years. A 10-minute struggle with Ontario jail guards killed him.
Five years after his death, Ontario’s chief pathologist Dr. Michael Pollanen has finally made that clear: his death was caused by guards at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay.
“The impaired respiratory function would be significant in the extreme conditions to which Soleiman Faqiri was exposed,” Pollanen wrote in his report, publicly released this week.
And just what were those extreme conditions?
He was repeatedly hit and kicked by guards at the Lindsay jail.
He was pepper-sprayed, twice.
He was pinned face down on the floor with a spit hood on.
His legs were shackled. His arms handcuffed behind his back.
Those details have been known for years. But someone has finally put the pieces together and concluded that his treatment at the hands of guards led to his brain being starved of oxygen, a fatal abnormal heartbeat, or both.
His death was not, as the first coroner’s report concluded, from “unascertained” causes.
Faqiri’s family has fought for years to get to this point. But now what?
Based on the report’s conclusion, the coroner’s office has turned the case over to the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate.
This is the third time a police investigation has been ordered into this man’s death. This one had better be comprehensive.
Correctional officers hold incredible power over citizens when they are at their most vulnerable. If they don’t maintain the highest standards, including following use-of-force rules, they should be held accountable.
Faqiri’s family wants to see criminal charges laid and that’s understandable. But even if that were to happen, and despite this new report it still may not be, that can’t be the end of this incident.
On their own, criminal charges won’t be enough to stop something similar from happening again.
Solitary confinement — where Faqiri was being held while waiting for a mental health assessment — is no place for anyone suffering from a mental illness. It cruelly exacerbates their symptoms.
We know that. Everyone involved in correctional services and in government knows that. It’s impossible not to know given how many coroner’s inquests, reports and reviews have explained it, often in heartbreaking detail after a tragic death, like Faqiri’s, has occurred.
And yet it keeps happening.
In a landmark 2013 settlement, Ontario acknowledged the terrible harm caused by solitary confinement — 22 hours or more a day in a six-by-nine-foot cell. It committed to banning solitary for inmates with mental illnesses, except as a rare last resort, and imposing a 15-day limit for everyone else.
But the province has not lived up to those basic and necessary obligations.
Solitary confinement is still vastly overused to put troubled inmates out of sight and out of mind, or as a way to maintain security in the face of understaffing or lack of mental health care inside prisons.
Ontario’s highest court has said solitary is an outrage to “standards of decency and amounts to cruel and unusual treatment.”
It cannot be a fix-all for the challenges of running a prison.
Faqiri was held in solitary for days as his schizophrenia symptoms were clearly getting worse. He needed help, but that’s not what he got from his guards or the Lindsay jail.
As Faqiri’s brother Yusuf said, the chief pathologist’s decision to review his case marks “the first time any government institution had any interest in finding out what really happened to my late brother.”
The family forced this to happen through their unwillingness to give up in the face of bureaucratic and government indifference.
They can’t do more than they have. But the OPP, correctional services and provincial authorities can — and must.”
The entire story can be read at: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2021/08/11/ontario-must-hold-those-responsible-for-soleiman-faqiris-death-to-account.html
