Responding to claims by Human Rights Watch that [Jamaican] authorities have been soft on police abuses on homosexual males and persons with HIV/AIDS, Information Minister Senator Burchell Whiteman, said in a statement: “We find the approach of this organization unacceptably insensitive.”

“We also as the duly elected representatives of the people feel that it is the people who must set our agenda, in respect to the legislation that we pass or the repeal of existing laws. We are certainly not about to respond to any organization 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 November 16. The report accused both the government and the Jamaica Constabulary Force 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 criticized the government’s stance on legislation on homosexuality [the Offenses Against the Person Act] or “the buggery law,” which they say is a piece of “discriminatory legislation.”

Speaking in support of the sentiments expressed by the human rights group, Delroy Chuck, Opposition spokesman on Justice said, “I find homosexual behavior 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 which is the problem. They are making a leap here. I see no reason to change the law, it is to be upheld,” he said.

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 Ramsay Nelson, head of the Constabulary Communication Network, said that the Police High Command had ordered a probe into the allegations.