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Anti-Gay Reggae Performer Charged In Hate Attack
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: September 27, 2005  1:00 pm ET










(Kingston, Jamaica) Buju Banton, one of Jamaica's most famous singers, has been charged with assault in connection with a vicious attack on six gay men.

Police allege that Banton was one of about a dozen armed men who forced their way into a house in Kingston last year and beat up the occupants while shouting homophobic insults. Several people were taken to the hospital following the attack.

Banton, whose song Boom Boom Bye Bye threatens gay men with a "gunshot in ah head", was identified by several witnesses.

He will appear in court on Friday to answer the charges.  In the meantime Baton is out on bail.

"This trial is test case on whether gay people can get justice in Jamaica," said Brett Lock of the UK-based gay human rights group OutRage, which has spearheaded an international campaign against homophobia by reggae singers.

"Some Jamaicans fear that Mr Banton’s celebrity and the strongly homophobic attitudes that exist in Jamaica will deny justice to the victims of what was a horrific homophobic assault," said Lock.

Gay sex is illegal in Jamaica, punishable by jail, with the possibility of hard labor. 

Last year, a concert in London by Beenie Man, another Jamaican singer who calls for beating and killing gays, was cancelled. (story)

One of Beenie Man's songs contains the lyrics: "I'm a dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays."

The cancellation of the concert came less than two weeks after the brutal slaying of Brian Williamson, Jamaica's most prominent gay activist.

His body was discovered in his Kingston apartment by a roommate returning home from work.  Williamson was lying facedown in a pool of blood. He had been stabbed numerous times in the neck. (story)

Sizzla, another Jamaican singer who advocates killing gays, had a concert at the House of Blues in West Hollywood cancelled last month after LGBT civil rights groups complained. Nevertheless, the chain of restaurants allowed a concert by Sizzla to go on in Cleveland. (story)

©365Gay.com 2005


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