On Monday, April 4, 2011, over 500 members of the Chinese community protested in front of the Supreme Court in Belize City to take a stand at the senseless crimes that has been plaguing their community, in particular the senseless killing of the two Belizean Chinese last week. A country wide shutdown is in effect since yesterday.
“We are really tired of these crimes; we are really tired of killing, robbing,” commented Edmund Quan, President, Belize Chinese Association, to Love FM News. “We want people to work, find a job instead of robbing people. It doesn’t matter if it is Chinese, Indian or Belizean. Whenever a killing or robbery takes place it affects all of us. We are planning to draft up a proposal to the Government for an amendment in jurisdiction law. I am not sure of the details on that; we have to discuss that we had a short time. We will work on it.”
Quan says members from Punta Gorda, Dangriga, the Belize District; Corozal and Orange Walk participated in the protest.
Master Lee, a member of the Chinese Community in San Pedro commented to Ambergris Today that they are also very shocked about this horrible news coming from the city. “We want to show our support to our family and friends in the mainland, so we also close down our shops for the two day protest,” commented Master Lee.
According to Chairman of the Belize Community Chamber of Commerce Philip Ying, the only way to resolve the crime problem is to implement much stronger prosecution and capital punishment.
“In general the crime situation is growing worse. If the judiciary system cannot be improved, you cannot stop the crime, commented Philip Ying – Chairman, Belize Chinese Community Chamber of Commerce. “You have to increase the prosecution power. You have to give very strong message. It is extremely important that we send a message that crime is punishable otherwise murderers are walking free what kind of message are we sending. If murderers can walk free in two months, one month we cannot stop crime. We have to stop crime by using public prosecution against murderer; that is the most important thing. This is not only a social problem, it is a judiciary problem. We have to try and change the judiciary process in order to increase the power of public prosecutor in order to prosecutor murderer in much stronger manner.”
Anonymous (not verified) –
I agree with Mr. Ying, that capital punishment and stronger prosecution should take place. The residents of the Chinese are proudly helping the country but if these crimes continues then later in the future we will see a big deacrease of help from them. Probably if these punishement takes place then crimes can finally decrease and have a much safer country.
Anonymous (not verified) –
We are tourists and love to explore Belize. But we heard that the crime is pretty bad so we changed our plan and never return.