The two male officers started to beat the man with batons. I turned to the female officer and asked, “What has he done wrong?” She turned to me and said, "Everyday me have to warn people about this guy coming on the beach. I'm going to lock him up.” I said, “For what?” She didn't say. The two policemen said, "Beat him because him a battyman [homosexual]."
Police abuse of people living with HIV/AIDS:
[The police asked] “Eh boy, how you look so, w’happen to you?” The person say, “I have AIDS and I want to take my medication.” Police say, “you must be battyman. [homosexual] Eh boy, eh boy, move your AIDS self from here. Mind me turn mi gun pon yuh and kill you. [Watch out because I might turn my gun on you and kill you.]
—Paul M., 40, told Human Rights Watch that in 2003 he was with a friend who had AIDS when the police approached them
Police interference with access to HIV prevention services:
Police always try to get in the way of handing out condoms. . . . Police say, “how can you be handing out condoms to battymen. . . . We do not encourage you to do this work because battymen fi dead. [gay men should be dead].”
—an AIDS outreach worker in Kingston
Discrimination in healthcare against people living with HIV/AIDS:
They always isolate them [people living with HIV/AIDS] in the ward. One day, we went to visit this guy and he was just lying in the bed alone. He had no sheets on the bed, no proper clothes. . . He was unable to feed himself or take his medication. All of the food, all of the medication was just left by the bed.
—Nurse with Jamaica AIDS Support, discussing how a patient living with HIV/AIDS was treated in a Kingston public hospital
