Gay Jamaican cop seeks asylum in Canada

An openly gay police officer in Kingston wants the Canadian government to grant him asylum, saying his life is in danger at home because of his sexuality. "I want to stay here and fight," Michael Hayden told the Toronto Star newspaper in a telephone interview from Kingston. "But it's not safe for me. My life is in great, great jeopardy." Hayden, 24, has been on the Jamaican force for four years. He told the Star that after fellow officers began suspecting he is gay he was routinely attacked and abused him. Earlier this month he spoke out publicly about the situation in an interview with The Jamaica Star newspaper. Since then he has been receiving death threats he said. The Canadian government has not commented on Hayden's request. Gay sex is illegal in Jamaica, punishable by ten years in jail, with the possibility of hard labor. The situation for gays in the Caribbean nation has been of concern to other Commonwealth countries and international human rights groups for several years following a number of violent attacks. Jamaica has been described as having the worst record of any country in the New World in its treatment of gays and lesbians. The most recent attack occurred on January 29 when a group of men approached a house where four males lived in the central Jamaican town of Mandeville, and demanded that they leave the community because they were gay, according to Jamaican human rights activists who spoke with the victims. Later that evening, a mob returned and surrounded the house. The four men inside called the police when they saw the crowd gathering. The mob started to attack the house, shouting and throwing bottles. Those in the house called police again and were told that the police were on the way. Approximately half an hour later, 15-20 men broke down the door and began beating and slashing the inhabitants. Human Rights Watch, quoting local activists said that police did not arrive until a half hour after the mob had broken into the house–90 minutes after the men first called for help. One of the victims managed to flee with the mob pursuing. A Jamaican newspaper reported that blood was found at the mouth of a nearby pit, suggesting he had fallen inside or may have been killed nearby. The police escorted the three other victims away from the scene; two of them were taken to the hospital. One of the men had his left ear severed, his arm broken in two places, and his spine reportedly damaged. There have been no arrests. The attack echoes another incident in the same town on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007 when approximately 100 men gathered outside a church where 150 people were attending the funeral of a gay man. According to mourners, the crowd broke the windows with bottles and shouted, "We want no battyman [gay] funeral here. Leave or else we're going to kill you. We don't want no battyman buried here in Mandeville." Several mourners inside the church called the police to request protection. After half an hour, three police officers arrived. Human Rights Watch said that instead of protecting the mourners, police socialized with the mob, laughing along at the situation. A highway patrol car subsequently arrived, and one of the highway patrol officers reportedly told the churchgoers, "It's full time this needs to happen. Enough of you guys." The highway patrol officers then drove off. The remaining officers at the scene refused to intervene when the mob threatened the mourners with sticks, stones, and batons as they tried to leave the service. Only when several gay men among the mourners took knives from their cars for self-defense did police reportedly take action by firing their guns into the air. Officers stopped gay men from leaving and searched their vehicles, but did not restrain or detain members of the mob, Human Rights Watch said. More than 30 gay men are believed to have been murdered since 1997 Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG) says. In most of the cases the killers have never been brought to trial. Arrests, however have been made in several cases which received international attention. In 2004 Brian Williamson, Jamaica's leading LGBT civil rights advocate was brutally murdered. He had been stabbed at least 70 times in the neck. A 25 year old man is currently serving a life sentence for the murder. In December 2005 Lenford "Steve" Harvey who ran Jamaica AIDS Support for Life was killed. Harvey was shot to death on the eve of World AIDS Day. His organization provided support to gay men and sex workers. Four men were arrested almost a year later. In 2006 the bodies of two women believed to have been in a lesbian relationship were found dumped in a septic pit behind a home they shared. The killers of Candice Williams and Phoebe Myrie have not been caught. Students at University of the West Indies in Kingston rioted last year as police attempted to protect a gay student and escort him from the campus. The incident began when the student was chased across the campus by another student who claimed the gay man had attempted to proposition him in a washroom. The same year a young man plunged to his death off a pier in Kingston after reportedly being chased through the streets by a mob yelling homophobic epithets. In February, 2007 three men in "tight jeans" and wearing what some witnesses described as makeup were cornered by a mob of 2000 in a drugstore. There were yells of "kill them" along with gay slurs and demands the three be sent out "to face justice". Police had to fire teargas into the crowd to rescue the three. Reggae, or Jamaican dancehall music, is blamed for fueling homophobia. Reggae star BujuBanton's hit song Boom Boom Bye Bye, threatens gay men with a "gunshot in ah head".