Adrian Frater, News Editor

Western Bureau:

Vendors and other persons conducting legitimate businesses on Gloucester Avenue - popularly called the 'Hip Strip', in Montego Bay - are accusing the police of abusing their constitutional rights by illegally detaining and photographing them to create a dossier of potential tourist harassers.

"It is 100 per cent true," said a 65-year-old craft vendor, who told The Sunday Gleaner that he was roughed up and taken to the Freeport Police Station where he was questioned, photographed and released without any justification. "It was the first time in my life that a man ever put a handcuff on me."

'Absolutely illegal'

The allegations, which prominent Montego Bay attorney-at-law Clayton Morgan describes as "absolutely illegal," were first brought to The Sunday Gleaner's attention by a Canadian visitor, who came to the offices of the Gleaner's Western Bureau, complaining that her Jamaican male friend, who was in her company on the Hip Strip, was roughed up and taken away by the police - questioned, photographed and released - without any justifiable reason.

Appalled

"Coming from a society where people's human rights are treated with the utmost respect, I was appalled to know that the police could do something like this," said the seemingly shocked visitor, who asked not to be identified, out of fear of exposing her friend to future abuse.

"In addition to being a violation of his human rights, the potential now exists that he could be incorrectly identified by someone asked to identify a black face from a bunch of photographs," added the visitor. "I have been visiting Jamaica for a long time and to me, most of the black people here look alike."

When The Sunday Gleaner visited the Hip Strip to investigate if the reported incident was an isolated case, this reporter was bombarded by similar stories from male craft vendors and employees of business establishments on the Hip Strip, who outlined numerous cases of persons being roughed up and forcefully taken to the Freeport Police Station - sometimes handcuffed and locked up in the trunk of a police car - only to be questioned, threatened, photographed and then released.

"The police tell us that if a visitor gets harassed on the Strip, the photographs will be used to help them (the visitors) identify their attackers," said a youthful vendor, who claimed he was a victim of the alleged police abuse. "Dem said they would rather hear that five people dead at Norwood (a volatile inner-city community) than to hear that one tourist get a scratch on the Strip."

Superintendent Warren Clarke, head of the St. James Police Division, said that while he was aware of an anti-harassment team working in the area, he had no knowledge that persons were being photographed.

Suspects taken in

"I know we have an anti-harassment team that is active on the Hip Strip and other prescribed areas," said Superintendent Clarke. "From time to time, suspected persons are taken in and interviewed. The processing (of suspects) is routine ... (But) I have no knowledge of photos being taken."

"When we ask the police on whose authority we are being photographed, they say that they are working on the instruction of the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), which has empowered them do whatever is necessary to keep the Hip Strip safe as a means of ensuring that visitors are not inconvenienced in any way," another vendor told The Sunday Gleaner.

"We are not aware of any such directive," said Janice Allen, the JTB's distribution marketing manager. "We don't get into police business or dictate to them how they should do their job," she told The Sunday Gleaner.