‘We Won’t Be Bullied’—Gov’t Says It Has No Plan to Repeal Buggery
Law; Denies Anti-Gay Allegations
Jamaica
Gleaner, November 18, 2004
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20041118/lead/lead1.html
By Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
GOVERNMENT YESTERDAY dismissed
claims by the international body, Human Rights Watch, that the authorities
have been soft on police abuses on homosexual males and persons affected by
HIV/AIDS.
“We find the approach of this organisation unacceptably
insensitive,” Information Minister Burchell Whiteman said in a statement
issued to the media yesterday.
“We also as the duly elected representatives of the
people feel that it is the people who must set our agenda in respect of the
legislation which we pass or the repeal of any existing laws. We are certainly
not about to respond to any organisation, external to this country, which may
want to dictate to us how and when to deal with the laws of our land,” said
Senator Whiteman.
He added: “To link the homophobia issue to the response
to the HIV/AIDS epidemic is inappropriate. The Government of Jamaica, through
various ministries and agencies, has taken measures to arrest the HIV/AIDS
epidemic.”
The findings of the Human Rights Watch Report were
released to the public during a launch at the Courtleigh Hotel in New Kingston
on Tuesday. The report accused both the Government and the Jamaica
Constabulary Force (JCF) of turning a blind eye to what they claim is a
“rampant abuse of homosexual males and persons living with HIV/AIDS.”
The international body also criticised the Government’s
stance on legislation (the buggery law) on homosexuality, which they say is a
‘discriminatory legislation’.
Speaking in support of the sentiments expressed by the
human rights group, Delroy Chuck, Opposition spokesman on Justice said, “I
find homosexual behaviour quite reprehensible but I believe it is a moral
issue and not one that should be prohibited by the legislature.”
Some clergymen, however, fiercely defended the law and
insisted that it should be upheld. Rev. Courtney Richards, of the Missionary
Church Association, pointed out that Human Rights Watch was mixing up the
issues. “It is not the law itself that is the problem. They are making a
leap here. I see no reason to change the law, it is to be upheld,” he said.
Discrimination
Turning to the charge of discrimination against persons
affected by HIV/AIDS in the church, Rev. Phillip Robinson, president of the
Jamaica Council of Churches, said, “they need to substantiate it. They have
not given us the facts and the grounds in which they have made the
allegations.”
In a quick response to allegations made against members
of the police force that they were derelict in their duties and turning a
blind eye to documented cases of physical and verbal abuse of HIV positive
persons, Superintendent Ionie Ramsey, head of the Constabulary Communication
Network (CCN), said that the police High Command had ordered a probe into the
allegations.
Hated to Death:
Homophobia, Violence, and Jamaica’s HIV/AIDS Epidemic
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