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Action Card Briefing – October 2008
Violence
A recent Amnesty
International report (www.amnesty.org.uk)
states that Jamaica's poor have been abandoned by the government and
left to the mercy of violent criminal gangs. The human rights group said
inner-city Jamaicans were being "held hostage" in the battle between
gangs and the state.
It goes on to say that
Jamaican authorities had stigmatised and "wilfully neglected" inner-city
communities. Jamaica has one of the region's highest murder rates, with
1,500 homicides in 2007 and 272 police killings. Often entire
populations are shut down by barricades and unable to leave their homes
after 5pm. Children do not go out to school and adults do not go to work
because transport is suspended. A total of 300 people have been killed
on the island since the beginning of the year.
Take action.
Write to:
His Excellency the
Honourable Burchell Whiteman, O. J.
Jamaican High Commission
1-2 Prince Consort Road
London
SW7 2BZ
Urge Jamaican authorities
to address the underlying causes in this "human rights crisis", act to
reduce murder rates, introduce human rights based policing and reform
the judicial system.
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