Jamaica Revokes Charity Status Of Top Human Rights Group

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Jamaica’s most promi­nent human rights orga­ni­za­tion has closed its legal depart­ment and laid off staff after los­ing its long­stand­ing sta­tus as a char­i­ty, a leader of the group said.

Barry Wade, chair­man of the Jamaicans for Justice, said the gov­ern­ment reject­ed the watch­dog group’s appli­ca­tion to renew its char­i­ty sta­tus, forc­ing it to dra­mat­i­cal­ly cut its oper­a­tions and turn down cer­tain grants from inter­na­tion­al donors. It now also faces some $100,000 in back taxes.

Wade said Tuesday the denial came due to con­cerns about the group’s advo­ca­cy for leg­isla­tive change, a rea­son he said is “puz­zling.” He also asserts that the deci­sion is “con­trary to inter­na­tion­al norms.”

The gov­ern­men­t’s Department of Cooperatives and Friendly Societies, which reject­ed the group’s renew­al appli­ca­tion, did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to requests for comment.

Over the years, police offi­cials have por­trayed Jamaicans for Justice as being sym­pa­thet­ic to crim­i­nals and some politi­cians have accused it of try­ing to make the island look bad. But the group is wide­ly respect­ed among many. In 2008, one of its founders received the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights for her work against police slayings.

Last year, the orga­ni­za­tion’s rep­u­ta­tion took a hit in Jamaica when it intro­duced a sex edu­ca­tion pro­gram for chil­dren’s group homes that it acknowl­edged was not prop­er­ly vet­ted. The mat­ter made head­lines for weeks on the island, in large part because the sex edu­ca­tion mate­r­i­al for young wards of the state includ­ed ref­er­ences to anal sex, which is ille­gal in Jamaica.

In 2013, the rights group waged a peti­tion and online video cam­paign demand­ing reforms in the treat­ment of chil­dren in state care that prompt­ed Youth Minister Lisa Hanna to describe the work as “dan­ger­ous and clear­ly designed to dam­age the rep­u­ta­tion of the country.”

In a Tuesday state­ment, Jamaicans for Justice said a new board elect­ed over the week­end will focus on get­ting the group’s char­i­ta­ble sta­tus back and hope­ful­ly reach a set­tle­ment with the gov­ern­ment regard­ing back taxes.