Broaden rights concepts, Amnesty Int'l
published: Thursday | June 17, 2004

THE EDITOR, Sir:

PLEASE GRANT me space to congratulate Amnesty International for coming out in support of a victim of a crime rather than the perpetrator of the crime. Unfortunately, the support is based solely on the sexual orientation of only one of hundreds of individuals who are killed each year in this country. Are you telling Jamaicans that the only way victims of crime will get attention from your organisation is if they are homosexuals? This narrow view of a victim of crime will surely not sit well with the majority of Jamaicans who are in one way or another victims of crime and
violence.

My greatest problem with Amnesty International however is, how does the work that you are doing benefit the ordinary law abiding Jamaican? I am not condemning Amnesty International or the work it does. However, I do have a problem when it seems to ignore the victims of crime. I do have a problem when one individual's death is singled out for scrutiny solely on the basis of the individual's sexual orientation and ignores hundreds of other violent deaths. Here are a few more to think about. A hard working businessperson is killed just because he made sacrifices and is successful and some thug thinks he has too much and wants some. A police officer is gunned down just because he is an officer of the law, or better yet, a man is killed just because he looks like a police officer. There are lots more.

If you are interested in being a benefit to us, then you could also defend the rights of children in our various institutions, see to it that our golden agers are properly taken care of, pressure the Government to combat gang warfare which results in children being prevented from going to school and causing people to abandon their homes.

I am, etc.,

EVERTON BONNER

Kingston