KINGSTON, Jamaica (Reuters) - Amnesty International launched a campaign on Tuesday to halt alleged human rights abuses by police in Jamaica, which the rights group says has the world's highest rate of police killings per capita.
Jamaican police officials countered by saying Jamaican police are killed on the job at one of the highest per capita rates in the world.
Amnesty Secretary General Pierre Sane said 140 people died at the hands of police last year in the Caribbean island nation of 2.6 million people. Jamaica suffers fierce gang turf wars in inner-city Kingston and is a leading transshipment point for Colombian cocaine bound for the United States.
"When I met with the prime minister of Jamaica (P.J. Patterson) in September last year, he assured me that the human rights of all Jamaicans are protected. Since the day of that meeting, the police have killed at least 65 people," Sane said in a statement.
"We acknowledge that the police have a right to protect themselves and the public when threatened but we ask ourselves, was every one of those deaths necessary to preserve the safety of those present?"
Assistant Police Commissioner Charles Scarlett said Amnesty failed to report that 114 Jamaican officers were killed on the job between 1988 and 2000, 50 of them since 1997.
"Amnesty International has no interest in being neutral. Their aim seems to be to demonize the Jamaica police force," Scarlett told Reuters.
The London-based human rights group released a report detailing concerns about police brutality, torture and killings, citing "chronic inadequate or lacking investigations into police killings" and reluctance to charge and try officers suspected of human rights abuses.
Want to learn more? http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=world&Repository=WORLD_REP&RepositoryStoryID=%2Fnews%2FIDS%2FWorld%2FINTERNATIONAL-RIGHTS-JAMAICA-DC_TXT.XML
------------------
PsychoticIckyThing
AlienSoup Mod
PsychoticIckyThing.Com
Jamaican police officials countered by saying Jamaican police are killed on the job at one of the highest per capita rates in the world.
Amnesty Secretary General Pierre Sane said 140 people died at the hands of police last year in the Caribbean island nation of 2.6 million people. Jamaica suffers fierce gang turf wars in inner-city Kingston and is a leading transshipment point for Colombian cocaine bound for the United States.
"When I met with the prime minister of Jamaica (P.J. Patterson) in September last year, he assured me that the human rights of all Jamaicans are protected. Since the day of that meeting, the police have killed at least 65 people," Sane said in a statement.
"We acknowledge that the police have a right to protect themselves and the public when threatened but we ask ourselves, was every one of those deaths necessary to preserve the safety of those present?"
Assistant Police Commissioner Charles Scarlett said Amnesty failed to report that 114 Jamaican officers were killed on the job between 1988 and 2000, 50 of them since 1997.
"Amnesty International has no interest in being neutral. Their aim seems to be to demonize the Jamaica police force," Scarlett told Reuters.
The London-based human rights group released a report detailing concerns about police brutality, torture and killings, citing "chronic inadequate or lacking investigations into police killings" and reluctance to charge and try officers suspected of human rights abuses.
Want to learn more? http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=world&Repository=WORLD_REP&RepositoryStoryID=%2Fnews%2FIDS%2FWorld%2FINTERNATIONAL-RIGHTS-JAMAICA-DC_TXT.XML
------------------
PsychoticIckyThing
AlienSoup Mod
PsychoticIckyThing.Com