5,000 signatures reached
To: IOPC and Gwent Police
Justice for Mouayed Bashir: Release the Bodycam and CCTV Footage
We, the undersigned, call on the IOPC and Gwent Police to release the complete bodycamera footage and the CCTV footage of Mouayed Bashir's time in police custody on the 17/02/2021 until the time of his death to his family with immediate effect.
Why is this important?
Mouayed Bashir, a 29 year old Welsh-Sudanese man, died in police custody on 17th February 2021. There are a number of suspicious circumstances surrounding his death.
His parents called 999 for an ambulance after Mouayed experienced a mental health crisis. Instead, a large number of police attended his house. Mouayed had been stabbed a few weeks earlier, but police officers restrained him despite the family telling the police many times about the severity of his wound. While under restraint by multiple officers, he died.
There was no proper risk assessment, and we believe this lack of a risk assessment from Gwent Police has led to Mouayed's death.
A leaked memo by the Metropolitan Police commented that while it does not routinely release footage, there are exceptions to this rule when not doing so will negatively damage community cohesion. We believe that transparency is important for fostering positive community cohesion, and Moyied's death has already seriously negatively effected and damaged community relations in Maesglas, Newport and across Wales.
As veteran activist Lee Jasper has pointed out re has been a long history of Black men suffering mental health crisis who have died after being forcibly restrained by police including Olsaeni Lewis, Sean Rigg and Kevin Clarke.
In 2021, you are 10.1x more likely to be stopped and searched by Gwent police if you are Black, and you are 6.5x more likely to go to prison if you are Black in Wales. Mouayed should not have been restrained: Mouayed should still be with us and with his family, and he is the second young Black man who has died following police contact in South Wales since the beginning of 2021.
His parents called 999 for an ambulance after Mouayed experienced a mental health crisis. Instead, a large number of police attended his house. Mouayed had been stabbed a few weeks earlier, but police officers restrained him despite the family telling the police many times about the severity of his wound. While under restraint by multiple officers, he died.
There was no proper risk assessment, and we believe this lack of a risk assessment from Gwent Police has led to Mouayed's death.
A leaked memo by the Metropolitan Police commented that while it does not routinely release footage, there are exceptions to this rule when not doing so will negatively damage community cohesion. We believe that transparency is important for fostering positive community cohesion, and Moyied's death has already seriously negatively effected and damaged community relations in Maesglas, Newport and across Wales.
As veteran activist Lee Jasper has pointed out re has been a long history of Black men suffering mental health crisis who have died after being forcibly restrained by police including Olsaeni Lewis, Sean Rigg and Kevin Clarke.
In 2021, you are 10.1x more likely to be stopped and searched by Gwent police if you are Black, and you are 6.5x more likely to go to prison if you are Black in Wales. Mouayed should not have been restrained: Mouayed should still be with us and with his family, and he is the second young Black man who has died following police contact in South Wales since the beginning of 2021.
