Al Jazeera: Jamaica – »Island of music and murder«

With 268 armed gangs or neighbourhood ‘corner crews’ locked in deadly turf wars, Jamaica is one of the most violent societies on earth.

With a population of less than three million people, police kill hundreds of people every year in what they claim are crime-related shootouts, making Jamaica’s police force among the deadliest in the world.

Rights groups say that these shootings add up to a campaign of extra-judicial executions carried out by police who have taken the law into their own hands.

The official police response to these allegations cannot be recorded – the commissioner has issued standing orders which ban all officers from speaking to foreign journalists.

But, as reporter Simon Ostrovsky discovered, many others in Jamaica are prepared to speak out. One of them, Robert Hill, an entertainer, actually warned of his own impending death.

Read the whole article over at the Al Jazeera website (via DHM forum).

 Leave a comment