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They are taunted threatened fired from their jobs, thrown out of their homes beaten, stoned, raped, and even killed.” Human Rights Watch submitted an amicus in the case based on similar findings in our 2014 report, Not Safe at Home, which documented pervasive anti-LGBT violence in Jamaica and is cited by the commission: “Many live in constant fear. It also found that discriminatory legislation contributes to violence by members of the public – like the murder attempt on petitioner Simone Edwards, and death threats against Gareth Henry. So it’s no surprise the commission concluded in its December 31st decision that Jamaica’s laws violate rights to privacy and equal protection under the convention.
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The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the tribunal charged with interpreting the American Convention, has established that the convention prohibits “any regulation, act or practice considered discriminatory based on a person’s sexual orientation,” and that sexual orientation is an aspect of private life that cannot be subject to state interference. The commission, an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States that is authorized to examine complaints of human rights violations, has already called on states to repeal laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Petitioners argued that Jamaica’s 1864 Offences Against the Person Act, which punishes the ‘abominable crime of buggery’ and acts of ‘gross indecency’ between males with up to ten years in prison with hard labor, violates rights protected under the American Convention on Human Rights. Jamaica are by some measures a no-brainer. The commission’s conclusions in Gareth Henry and Simone Carline Edwards v. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights today made public a decision calling on Jamaica to repeal laws prohibiting consensual same-sex conduct. © 2008 Ludovic Berton (Wikimedia Commons)