August 11, 2001
JAMAICANS UNITED AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY Dear Friends, Amnesty International releases a report about the horrendous human rights situation in Jamaica and they are dismissed and ridiculed by the government. A human rights lawyer goes into a police lockup to give legal advice to police detainees and he is insulted and threatened by the police including a senior officer. He is told that detainees cannot consult with their lawyer in private. The next day the lawyer receives a letter threatening to kill him because of his human rights activities. In the same incident a mother inquiring about her detained son is gunbutted by a police officer. How clearer could it be that if government is hostile and indifferent to citizens' human rights then we can hardly expect the police to be any less hostile if not more so? The government after all sets policy for the police. The issue of police brutality and police extrajudicial killings has to be resolved therefore at the political level. The government has to be held accountable. Indeed we continue to maintain that Prime Minister Patterson should be taken to court to answer for the atrocities committed by the security forces under his command. Lloyd D'Aguilar
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ISSUES BULLETIN OF CONCERN FOR THE SAFETY OF HILAIRE SOBERS, LAWYER AND HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVST PUBLIC AI Index: AMR 38/020/2001 UA 201/01 Fear for safety 8 August 2001 Journalist Hilaire Sobers has received a death threat, which appears to have come from a supporter of the government. He is an outspoken critic of the government's human rights record, and Amnesty International is seriously concerned for his safety. Hilaire Sobers, who is also a human rights activist and lawyer, writes a weekly column on human rights for the Jamaica Observer. He has been highly critical of the authorities' failure to prevent extrajudicial executions by the security forces and other abuses. On 7 August a letter was delivered to the newspaper's offices, which contained a picture of a gunman raping and shooting Hilaire Sobers with an M16 rifle. It referred to Hilaire Sobers's work and said, "When we ready wi a go shoot all a oonu like Perkins, Wignal and all oonu lawyer in a oonu rass hole... Fire in a yu batty." (When we are ready we are going to shoot all of you like Perkins [a renowned radio journalist], Wignal [a journalist working for the Jamaica Observer] and all of you lawyers in the arsehole... Fire in your arse). It also made explicit reference to Amnesty International: "Help! Amnesty. Help Goat Face Gomes. Wan gunman a dig out mi batty hole wid him M16. Wey de insane Sane deh." (Help! Amnesty. Help Goat Face Gomes [Carolyn Gomes, Director of Jamaicans for Justice, a human rights non-governmental organisation]. Gunmen want to shoot me in the arse with an M16...Where's the insane Mr. Sané? (Former Amnesty International Secretary General Pierre Sané visited Jamaica in September 2000 and April 2001.) Hilaire Sobers reported the letter to the police that day. The writer of the letter appears to be a supporter of the ruling People's National Party (PNP), and suggested that Mr Sobers was working in tandem with the opposition JLP party, accusing JLP leader Edward Seaga of being "de biggest teif an gunman in de world". The day before the death threat was delivered, Sobers and representatives from a human rights organisation, FAST, had gone to Hunts Bay Police Station in the capital, Kingston, to provide legal assistance to several young men who had been arrested. Police refused to say why the men had been arrested. When a FAST member [Yvonne Sobers, and mother of Hilaire] said, "Why is this man acting like a fool?", a police officer grabbed her, put her under arrest and charged her with using abusive language and obstructing an officer. She was released a few minutes later on the orders of a senior officer. Police threatened to hit another FAST member and then threw him out of the police station. The mother of one of the young men who had been arrested had come to the police station to find out why he had been arrested and try to see him: police hit her with their rifle butts and threw her out. Amnesty International has been receiving increasing numbers of reports of members of local NGOs campaigning on human rights being threatened and intimidated. The organisation is also concerned at inflammatory comments by members of the government and others in authority. At a recent funeral of a police officer, the Minister for National Justice and Security criticised human rights groups for defending the rights of criminals, implying that they sympathised with gunmen. Amnesty International fears that such comments may undermine freedom of expression. For further information, see JAMAICA: Killings and Violence by Police: How many more victims? Click here to return to Jamaicans United Against Police Brutality homepage. |