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In advance of the 2014 Johns Hopkins-Pulitzer Center Symposium, Jamaican human rights lawyer Maurice Tomlinson reflected on the discriminatory laws against the LGBT community and anti-gay sentiment in Jamaica.
“When I would take my clients to the police station to report attacks against homosexuals, the police would refuse to assist,” Tomlinson said in an interview with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “The fact is, the police and politicians think homosexuals are criminals and deserve what they get."
Tomlinson, an LBGT rights activist and inaugural recipient of the 2012 David Kato Vision and Voice Award, is featured in "The Abominable Crime," which screens on Wednesday, October 8, as part of the two-day Campus Consortium symposium. Tomlinson was forced to flee his homeland of Jamaica when his marriage to another man became public knowledge.
Pulitzer Center grantee filmmaker Micah Fink weaves Tomlinson's story through "The Abominable Crime" as part of the award-winning documentary's examination of Jamaica's homophobic culture and its impact on individuals' lives.
Tomlinson will share his personal story and his experience with human rights work at the “The Abominable Crime” screening and the next day, on Thursday, October 9, at the symposium's panels titled, Human Rights and HIV: Public Health, the Media and the Fight Against Stigma and Discrimination. Fink also will participate in both events.
For the full interview, see the article "The Fight for LGBT Rights in Jamaica."
