| Guyana should halt arrests and police abuse of transgender people and repeal a repressive law that criminalises wearing clothes considered appropriate only for the opposite sex, six human rights organisations said today in a letter to President Bharrat Jagdeo.The letter was signed by the Caribbean Forum for Liberation of Genders and Sexualities (CARIFLAGS), Global Rights, Guyana Rainbow Foundation (Guybow), Human Rights Watch, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), and the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD).They called on the Guyanese authorities to drop the charges against seven people arrested under the law in February 2009, and investigate allegations of abuse by the police.“Police are using archaic laws to violate basic freedoms,” said Scott Long,Nike Air Force One Shoes For Sale, director of the Lesbian,Air Max 97 For Sale Australia, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Programme at Human Rights Watch. “This is a campaign meant to drive people off the streets simply because they dress or act in ways that transgress gender norms.”Between February 6 and February 10 last, police in Georgetown detained at least eight people, some of them twice,Cheap NHL Jerseys, charging seven of them for cross-dressing.Officers took the detainees to Brickdam police station.The detainees reported to SASOD Guyana, a local human rights organisation working for the freedoms of lesbian,Nike Shox Gravity, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, that police refused to allow them to make a phone call or to contact a lawyer, both basic rights under the law.The detainees reported that police officers photographed them and then told them to take off all of their ‘female clothes” in front of several police officers. One defendant told the rights organisation that after the detainees stripped the police told them to bend down to ‘search’ them,Cheap NHL Jerseys, as a way of mocking them for their sexual orientation. They were then ordered to put on “men’s clothing”.Police kept five of the men in solitary confinement until the day of the trial,Austin Hooper Falcons Jersey UK, contending that it was for their safety. The first arrests took place on February 6, when plainclothes policemen detained three men in downtown Georgetown near Stabroek Market.On February 7 last the police detained five more. On both occasions acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson fined the detainees $7,500 each.On February 10 the police detained four people, three of whom had been among those arrested on February 6 and February 7.In court, when handing down the sentences, Chief Magistrate Robertson told the detainees they were not women but men, and exhorted them to ‘go to church and give their lives to Christ’. (Human Rights Watch) |
