Santo Domingo.- The US State Dept. on Wed. labeled the illegal or arbitrary killings by Dominican Republic’s law enforcement agencies as one of the country’s main human rights problems.
It noted that, according to government data, more than 3,000 people died during clashes with Police officers or other agents between 2007 and March 2019. Of that number of deaths, the exact number of extrajudicial executions is unknown.
State said that as of October the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) reported over 70 extrajudicial executions by Police in 2019.
Although the figure represents a drop of around 30% since 2018, the media and civil society acknowledged that many of the cases go unreported due to a lack of confidence in the justice system to press charges.