The Brian Williamson Memorial Fund

The Brian Williamson Memorial Fund

Recently Human Rights Watch conducted a study in Jamaica about homophobia, violence and Jamaica’s HIV/AIDS epidemic entitled “Hated to Death”. It was found that violence against men who have sex with men, ranging from verbal harassment to beatings, armed attacks and murder, is pervasive in Jamaica. 

Physical attacks against gay men and men perceived to engage in homosexual conduct are often accompanied by expressions of intent to kill the victim, such a “battyman fi dead” (gay men must die). They are reluctant to appeal to the police for protection, as police routinely deny them assistance, fail to investigate complaints of homophobic violence, and arrest or detain men whom the suspect of being gay. In some cases, the police attack them and promote homophobic violence by others.

Lesbians are also targets of community violence and police harassment as much as gay men, their complaints of violence are often ignored by police.

Endemic violence by private actors and by Jamaican police and security forces, and inadequate state response to it, are problems faced by all Jamaicans. Gays and lesbians are often on the front lines of such violence, however. Jamaica’s sodomy laws, which criminalize consensual sex between adult men, are used to justify arbitrary arrest and detention and sometimes torture of men (and sometimes women) suspected of being homosexual. 

Political and cultural factors, including religious intolerance of homosexuality, Jamaican popular music and the use of antigay slogans and rhetoric by political leaders, also promote violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. While many of these actions are protected under the rights to freedom of speech and religion, the Jamaican government has failed to confront them as root causes of widespread violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In light of all this, the Jamaican Forum for Lesbians All-Sexuals and Gay (J-FLAG) have decided to established the Brian Williamson Memorial Fund in Memory of the late Brian Williamson, a leading gay rights activist, who on June 9, 2004 was murdered in his home and his body mutilated by multiple knife wounds. 

Though his murder was not directly homophobic it has raised some concerns on the matter as evidenced in many persons outside the address and murder scene who celebrated Williamson’s murder, laughing and calling out “let’s get them one at a time”, “that’s what you get for sin”, “let’s kill all of them”, while others sang “boom bye bye”, a line from a popular Jamaican song about killing and burning gay men. As other friends and activists came by to confirm the news they too were the subject of threats even in the presence of police and verbal abuse.

Since then a number of other gay men have suffered the same or similar fate, hence the Brian Williamson’s Fund will be used to assist persons of the Lesbian, Gay and Bi-sexual Community who have fallen prey to the violence as a result of homophobia in Jamaica.

We (JFLAG) are therefore soliciting your support by assisting in whatever way possible in order to bring about change within the gay community in Jamaica.

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