The Students Unification Party (SUP) has declared Police Inspector General Gregory Coleman, and PSU Monrovia Battalion Malachi S. Kolubah as persona non-grata, calling on the Boakai-led government to dismiss them and investigate the Liberia National Police.
In its quest for dismissals, the campus-based movement expressed a vote of no confidence in the Liberia National Police to protect lives and property.
SUP also petitions the National Humans Right commission to investigate the Liberia National Police and Police IG Gregory Coleman for human rights violation.
SUP’s call stems from IG Gregory Coleman IG of the Liberia National Police alleged lack of leadership, ineptitude, and turning LNP into organization accommodating incompetent individuals as well as ex-rebels and warlords.
According to the Students Unification Party, LNP under the leadership of Gregory Coleman, has turned into “a killing machine, killing peaceful citizens and inflating worms on students and individuals who are exposing the missteps within the Boakai-Koung administration.”
The Liberia National Police under Mr. Gregory Coleman has shown to be the worst LNP. It has exposed the institution as a death spiral for peaceful citizens who dared question the status quo. Evidence are seen by the King Jor massacre, the shooting of a minors in the Robert field high way by a PSU official, the killing of another police officer in Nimba county for chicken feet, and the recent invasion of the University of Liberia campuses on November 18, 2024, leading to major injuries to students who were demanding the right to accessible learning, and expressing concerns about the unjustified closure of the University of Liberia depriving more than 22,000 students’ rights.
SUP in a press statement narrated that on November 18, 2024, between 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM the University of Liberia campus became what it called “a scene of barbaric, terroristic, inflammatory attack” on peaceful and armless students of the University of Liberia by unprofessional and unethical police.
The students’ political party said the infringement of the 1986 constitution as well as international laws that guarantee the rights of citizens was vividly illustrated by police who according to them deliberately brutalized students on camera under direct instructions from the Police Inspector General Gregory Coleman.
Recently, students gathered in front of the Capitol Hill Campus in protest what they see as violation of Article 6, Article 12, 15, and 17 of the 1986 Constitution of the Republic of Liberia Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 8 of the African chapter on humans and people right.
Article 17 of the 1986 Constitution of Liberia clearly states that everyone has the right to assemble peacefully which can be in the form of protestation as an expression of dissatisfaction against their government. The students’ campus-based political movement said their right was clearly violated by the Liberian National Police where the LNP Officers went into tussle with the students.
According to the students, this action did not just stop at the campus but extended to various communities where students were being chased while fleeing for their lives.
“We want to inform the general public and international partners and this commission that the police IG in Gregory Coleman has recruited rebels into the police force who are very untrained and insensitive to their duty and obligation as national security apparatus thereby reducing the image of the police to gangsterism.”, the statement included.
They believe under the leadership of Gregory Coleman, “the police has been a place of widespread corruption and brutality against peaceful students and civilians”.
One person they claimed is a direct facilitator of tortured in police cells is Malachi S. Kolubah who was recently appointed as the Monrovia Battalion Commander for the Police Support Unit (PSU) CODE UNIT-197.
The aggrieved students is accusing PSU Monrovia Battalion Kolubah of allegedly instructing PSU officers to beat and cut the hair of student leaders who were arrested and taken to the PSU basement without being forwarded for investigation.
SUP Claims that the recently appointed officer, Malachi S. Kolubah, “was drunk with power”, thereby inflicting serious bodily injury on three student leaders arrested by the LNP.
According to SUP press statement, Police forcibly used a single blaze to cut their hair while stripped naked, something the party considers a vicious act that didn’t only violate the rights of those students, but also jeopardized their health.
“Mr. Malachi must be dismissed immediately and investigated for demonstrating gross unprofessional conduct.”
The statement continued as SUP claimed witnessing live stream of students being arrested and handcuffed, and massively tortured in the presence of journalists and the general public with no fear for the basics human rights of those individuals while on handcuffs.
SUP said even though the student did not put any resistance against the police arrest but Gregory Coleman’s “rebel police” brutalized them similarly to what happened in Grand Cape Mount County.
In strong words, the Students Unification Party stated: “The dark days are back when the rights of the people are being violated in broad daylight. Therefore, we are calling on the Human Rights Commission to also launch an impartial investigation on all those officers seen on recording torturing peaceful students.”
