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| From Olympic taekwondo to Olympic alien smuggling? |
Dominican netizens are expressing outrage after allegations surfaced that Luisito Pié, the athlete of Haitian descent who won the Dominican Republic's only medal at the Olympics in Rio this past summer, was arrested driving a contingent of undocumented Haitian nationals, supposedly smuggling them over the border.
According to unconfirmed reports, the police officer who apprehended Mr. Pié was himself arrested instead, allegedly for the egregious crime of forcing an Olympian to obey the nation's laws.
If the allegations against Mr. Pié eventually turn out to hold weight, it would follow the standard pattern of young Dominican superstars behaving as if they were above the law, except that the Dominican individual suspected of human smuggling in this case happens to be a dual national.
As Abreu Report has written in the past, the Dominican Republic should have a zero-tolerance policy on crimes committed by dual nationals, with superstars such as Luisito Pié being no exception. If a police colonel has indeed been arrested for doing his job, then he should be immediately released and promoted, with those responsible for ordering and carrying out his detention facing repercussions. If it eventually were discovered, as most likely will be the case, that the order to release Luisito came from the Presidential Palace, then the people's elected representatives should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the Republic.
Haiti is currently facing a humanitarian crisis of unparalleled proportions, but so is the Dominican Republic; there are more Haitians in the Dominican Republic per km2 than Brazilians in Brazil, and the country's hospitals and schools are on the verge of collapse.
Anyone who collaborates in the smuggling of aliens during the most intense outbreak of cholera the modern world has seen should be charged with violating laws regulating the use and transport of biological weapons, a crime punishable with the loss of Dominican citizenship.
If it is eventually proven that Luisito served as human trafficker, he should be stripped of citizenship and promptly deported, with his handlers in the Presidential Palace facing charges of treason.
