A law firm that convinced the British government to grant asylum to three Jamaican homosexual men on the basis that their return to this country could cost them their lives, is making applications for seven more on the same basis.

"We have been pursuing these cases over the last year under the United Nations Refugee Convention which says you may be granted asylum if you are being persecuted and your country's state is unwilling to protect you," said Barry O'Leary, of the Wesly Gryk law firm in London. "That's the basis on which our clients were given the right to remain in this country."
O'Leary, also a spokesman for the Stonewall Immigration group, an organisation that lobbies for homosexuals, told the Sunday Observer that examples of the persecution suffered by his clients included the murder of their partners in Jamaica, and various forms of physical torture advocated by sections of the local music industry.

When the story broke in Britain last month, one of the successful men, a 26 year-old who said he "used to work in security" here, outlined several incidents of torture to various sections of the Press. In one instance, the British Broadcasting Corporation quoted him in a radio news edition of October 18, 2002.
"I was working in security and had to use a portable radio a lot. Every time I would get on the airwaves people would shout 'hey, gay boy, get off the radio'. People are constantly at you. I was arrested for allegedly abusing a boy - something I was wrongfully accused of and something I would never dream of doing ever in my life."

The homosexual told the British press that he was taken to the door of a holding cell with 15 prisoners by a policeman who said 'There you go, b...y boy,' before pushing him inside.
"I was hit, I was slapped. The policemen beat me and hit me so hard I am still completely deaf in my right ear. On the streets I had my throat slashed and when I went to hospital I could not tell them I was gay or they would not have treated me. I was always looking over my shoulder, thinking someone was going to attack me or shoot me... It is just not possible to live a normal life in Jamaica if you are gay," he said.

A British newspaper carried claims that an angry Jamaican mob chased the same homosexual man into the sea close to the Norman Manley International Airport where he was 'forced to swim against the tide for four exhausting hours to escape certain death'.
O'Leary said that this was the sort of evidence that influenced the decision to seek asylum for his clients.
"It's a disgrace," he fumed. "Jamaica as a civilised state has failed 100 per cent as far as protecting these men are concerned. The homophobia that has made it impossible for these men to return safely runs right through the police to the government."

However, Deputy Superintendent of Police Miguel Wynter, who heads the Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates allegations of misconduct on the part of the Jamaican Constabulary, said that he had never had any complaints of the nature described by O'Leary.
"It is a part of the mandate of the police to protect all the people of Jamaica," Wynter said. "Every complaint gets similar treatment in that it is investigated. If a homosexual were to complain that the police refused to protect him, we would investigate, but I don't know of any such case and if there were such a case it is likely that I would know about it."
Buggery, the ultimate consummation of male homosexual relationships, is a crime in Jamaica which is punishable by a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. Wynter said this could deter homosexuals from coming forward with complaints.

But claims on the website of the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), which was forced to cancel its monthly fund-raising lymes last year due to violent attacks by ordinary Jamaicans, suggest that the security of which Wynter spoke is not available to homosexuals.
"Go to the police for protection? Maybe if that's the way you choose to go out (of this world)," said a homosexual man who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In fact, posted on J-FLAG's website is a story of a late night confrontation between three policemen and 12 members of Jamaica AIDS Support's Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Community (GLABCOM) in September last year.

According to the story, the 12 men were walking home from a safer sex and behaviour change support meeting when they were accosted by the cops who used the Jamaican street jargon for homosexuals to address them and threatened to lock them up.
The homosexuals eventually got out of the scrape after one of them called to the scene, Jamaica AIDS Support's director of targeted interventions, whom one of the cops said he recognised.
Police statisticians have so far been unable to provide any information of individuals who were murdered because of their sexual orientation, although they admitted that they were not able to cite a motive for most of the murders on their books.

"Of the 937 murders committed this year, 31 were drug-related, 145 gang-related, 252 related to domestic disputes, 303 reprisals, 116 robberies, 10 mob killings, 12 political, two police/criminal confrontations and six rapes. The motives for 60 murders remain undetermined," said Sergeant Paul Reynolds at the time he spoke to the Sunday Observer.
The comparative figures that Reynolds outlined for last year indicated that of the 1,015 murders committed that year, 26 were drug-related, 154 gang-related, 306 related to domestic disputes, 325 reprisals, 133 robberies, five mob killings, eight political, five police/criminal confrontations and six rapes. For that period, the motives for 37 murders were undetermined.
"I am not saying that it did not happen, but I am not aware that anyone has been murdered because they are homosexual," said Wynter.

However, in a totally different take on the matter, British journalists cited the case of a homosexual man whom they say was murdered while seeking refuge in a church yard, as well as the 1997 prison riots which were triggered by an attempt on the part of the then prison authorities to issue condoms to warders and inmates with a view to denting the burgeoning deadly HIV/Aids virus.
"Sixteen allegedly gay men were murdered and 40 more injured," wrote Tony Johnson in the October 18 edition of Guardian UnLimited's London-based Observer newspaper.

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