McClean’s words ‘reckless’

BY TIM SLINGER | WED, MARCH 30, 2011 - 12:03 AM

MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS and Foreign Trade Senator Maxine McClean has come under fire for her handling of the incident involving a 22-year-old Jamaican woman, who claimed she was finger-searched before being denied entry into Barbados two weekends ago.

Jamaica’s Public Defender Earl Witter described McClean’s remarks that Shanique Myrie’s claims were baseless and untrue as injurious and reckless, adding that it had contributed significantly to the deteriorating relations between the two countries.

“I consider [McClean’s] remarks were injurious when she pronounced Myrie’s allegations a total fabrication. [McClean] was making definitive judgement as was reported to her by Barbadian functionaries.

“[McClean] should have heard evidence of both sides before making judgement that Myrie’s story was a fabrication,” Witter told the DAILY NATION from his office in Kingston yesterday.

Noting he sensed “a motion of hostility” while McClean was issuing her statement on the issue, Witter said she was also contemptuous when she referred to a diplomatic note sent from Jamaica to the Barbados Government as a “piece of correspondence”.“It smacks of contempt and to label it (diplomatic note) that way is to demean diplomatic correspondence at the highest level.

“It disturbs me,” he added.

Witter, who has been mandated by the Jamaican government to look into the matter, said he had made a request to Ombudsman Valton Bend to independently investigate the matter and report his findings.

But he noted that might not now be possible since Bend might find himself in an awkward position, given the stance of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Witter said that based on the current atmosphere the incident had triggered, the court could be the best recourse to settle the issue.

“I don’t think it can be resolved in any other way. All the alleged actors can be subjected to cross-examination.

“The relations between the two countries are in a very unhappy state,” he added.

Barbados could be hauled before the International Court of Human Rights

BY SANKA PRICE | WED, MARCH 30, 2011 - 12:04 AM

THE BARBADOS Government will be hauled before the International Court of Human Rights, if need be, to ensure Jamaican Shanique Myrie gets justice for the trauma she reportedly suffered at the hands of airport officials.

Myrie’s attorney, Anthony Hylton, pledged this yesterday saying he wanted to ensure she was vindicated in her claims of being finger-raped on March 14 after her arrival at the Grantley Adams International Airport before being denied entry.

“It did happen, and we will prove it,” said Hylton, a former Jamaican minister of foreign affairs. “We know the hurdles in the law and we will get around it.

“We are aware that the police are who did it,” he said in a telephone interview from his New Kingston office.

He, however, declined to speak further on this accusation. Myrie had said she was cavity searched by a female immigration officer.

When the MIDWEEK NATION reached Myrie yesterday, she referred questions to her attorney.The glum sounding 23-year-old did say: “I am very depressed at the moment.”

The issue is expected to be raised today at a meeting of the Caribbean Community Council.

Read full article here.

Jamaican delegation to head to Barbados this week

The Foreign Affairs ministry says a high level delegation is to travel to Barbados this week to have discussions with officials in that country regarding allegations of abuse of a Jamaican at an airport there.

There has been much public outcry since Shanique Myrie, reported that on a visit to Barbados on March 14 she was subjected to two demeaning cavity searches by a female immigration officer and was detained for hours for interrogation.

She also said the immigration officer made several derogatory remarks about Jamaicans.

The Ministry says it has sought to address her case through diplomatic channels but has received no response to a diplomatic note faxed on March 25.

However, it says Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr. Ken Baugh, received an email from his Barbadian colleague outlining the text of a press release from the Barbados Government Information Service on March 26.

The report has refuted Myrie’s claim of abuse.

The Foreign affairs minister also received information showing that for the three-year period from 2008 to 2010 about 851 of the more than 51,000 Jamaicans who sought to enter Barbados were denied entry.

Read full article here.

Jamaica group to study airport abuse claims

TUE, MARCH 29, 2011 - 12:06 AM The Barbados Nation News

The Jamaica Association is still to take a position on reports that a Jamaican woman was verbally and sexually abused at the Grantley Adams International Airport.

President Peter Kerr told the DAILY NATION yesterday that the association had not yet come to a position on the matter, but Jamaicans were “feeling aggrieved” at reports of an inappropriate search by Immigration officials of Shanique Myrie on March 14.

He said the association would be looking to obtain from the various parties involved reports that would be reviewed at an upcoming executive meeting.

The association’s executive would make a determination on whether there was need to get the general membership involved in the matter, he reported.

Ever since the story broke in the Jamaica Observer newspaper, people have been airing views in the Press and the other media.

Authorities launched an investigation into the matter and last Saturday Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Maxine McClean told the Press there was no truth to the allegations.

McClean made it “absolutely clear that a thorough investigation had been carried out by the Immigration and Customs departments into reports that had been carried in the Jamaican Press suggesting that Shanique Samantha Myrie had been finger-raped by Immigration officers after she arrived on Barbadian soil”.

Following the announcement by McClean, Jamaica’s Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Ken Baugh said he would be raising the issue at the impending CARICOM Council meeting in Belize.

Baugh also encouraged Jamaicans to inform the government of any unfair treatment they experienced while overseas.

Jamaica’s National Security Minister Dwight Nelson also expressed strong views on the matter and wrote a letter to Public Defender Earl Witter, urging him to intervene. (YB/TS)

Caricom must deal with free movement

TUE, MARCH 29, 2011 - 11:00 AM

Prominent Caribbean academic and political scientist, Professor Neville Duncan, is calling on Caribbean Community (CARICOM) governments to make a definitive statement on the issue of free movement within the region.

His statement follows the decision of the Jamaica government to take claims of by one of its nationals that she was sexually and verbally abused by Barbadian customs and immigration officials to the meeting of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Council meeting this week.

In addition, the National Security Minister, Dwight Nelson, has written to Public Defender, Earl Witter, asking him to intervene in the issue after the woman, Shanquie Myrie, claimed she had been subjected to sexual and verbal abuse at the hands of the authorities at the Grantley Adams International airport last week.

But Parliamentary Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, Harry Husbands, who has responsibility for Immigration, said there was no record of Myrie being searched by either immigration or customs officers and that a full statement would be issued after more investigations.

Read full article here.

Finger-rape claim untrue

BY CHRIS GOLLOP | SUN, MARCH 27, 2011 - 12:03 AM

THERE IS NO TRUTH to a report by a Jamaican woman who claimed she was finger-searched before being denied entry into Barbados last week.

Government is however planning a high-level meeting with the Jamaican High Commissioner to Trinidad to try to prevent any major fallout between the two countries as a result of the media hype surrounding the incident.

At a Press conference yesterday, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Maxine McClean made it “absolutely clear that a thorough investigation had been carried out by the Immigration and Customs departments into a report that had been carried in the Jamaican Press suggesting that Shanique Samantha Myrie had been finger-raped by Immigration officers after she arrived on Barbadian soil on March 14”.

The story made headlines in Jamaica, and McClean confirmed to reporters attending the briefing at Government Headquarters that Jamaica’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ken Baugh had written to her seeking an urgent investigation into the matter.

After three days of investigations, however, McClean told reporters:“There is absolutely no truth to a story carried in a Jamaican newspaper on Thursday, March 24, that a female citizen of that country was body-searched by Immigration officers on arrival at the Grantley Adams International Airport.”

In a prepared statement, she added: “Chief Immigration Officer Ms Erine Griffith has refuted this allegation made in the Jamaica Observer. She has confirmed that her department and Customs ‘have carried out extensive investigations and the claims were baseless’.”

Read full article here.

Jamaican Myrie plans to sue

SUN, MARCH 27, 2011 - 3:00 PM

Shanique Myrie, the Jamaican woman who complained of being finger-raped and humiliated by Barbados immigration authorities earlier this month, has hit back at claims by the Barbados Government that she was not subjected to a body cavity search.

On Friday, Parliamentary Secretary in the Prime Minister’s office, with responsibility for Immigration, Senator Harry Husbands claimed there was no record of Myrie being searched by either immigration or customs officers and alleged that the Jamaican was a victim of human trafficking.

“Shanique Myrie, on arrival in Barbados, claimed she would have been staying with a female resident, but a closer investigation however revealed she was actually staying with a Barbadian man who actually facilitates the entry of non-nationals into the island,” Husbands was quoted in the online edition of Nation News as saying.

“I am going to sue them,” she said yesterday and contradicted Husbands’ statements.

She insisted that she was “defiled” by the Barbadian authorities at the Grantley Adams International Airport on March 14.

“I am not lying. They humiliated me and searched me like I was an animal. They can carry me back to the Barbados airport and I can show you every room they took me into. I can identify the woman who defiled me. They are the ones who are lying,” she told the Sunday Observer.

In her interview published in the Daily Observer on March 24, Myrie said: “The lady took me into a bathroom and told me to take off my clothes. I did as requested. After searching me and my clothes, she found no contraband or narcotics. She then asked me to bend over, open my legs and spread [my private parts]. She said that if I did not comply then she would see that I end up in prison in Barbados. When I bent over and spread my [private parts] I felt something enter my [private parts] and when I looked between my legs I saw her gloved hand in my [private parts]. I screamed and stood up.

“She then told me if I obstructed her doing a cavity search she would have me locked up. I bent over again and spread. She again inserted her fingers and poked around. I felt like I was being raped. I was so hurt and ashamed. I felt dirty and defiled, I don’t even know if the gloves she used was clean or had been used on somebody else,” she said.

Myrie, who said the immigration officer removed her identification tag before humiliating her, also said the immigration officer expressed her hatred for Jamaicans.

Read full article here.

Taking it to CARICOM!

MON, MARCH 28, 2011 - 12:03 AM

KINGSTON – The Jamaica government says it will take the claims by one of its nationals that she was sexually and verbally abused by Barbadian customs and immigration officials to the meeting of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Council meeting this week.

Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Dr Ken Baugh says the matter will be raised at the Council meeting, which is CARICOM’s second highest decision-making body.

“This is something that we have discussed . . . It is not necessarily Barbados but in the Caribbean. It’s a very topical issue at all our meetings at COTED (Council for Trade and Economic Development) as well as COFCOR (Council on Foreign and Community Relations), and I’m going to raise this at the Community Council meeting in Belize next week,” said Dr Baugh.

National Security Minister Dwight Nelson on Friday wrote to Public Defender Earl Witter asking him to intervene in the issue after the woman, Shanique Myrie, claimed she had been subjected to sexual and verbal abuse at the hands of the authorities at the Grantley Adams International Airport.

Nelson expressed outrage at the incident, noting that he was awaiting word from Baugh about discussions he was seeking with his Barbadian counterpart.

Baugh said he was encouraging Jamaicans to inform the government of any unfair treatment they experienced while overseas.

“People need to give us the information. They can call the ministry, write a report and send the information to us. I’ve asked my permanent secretary to document all the information so that when I go to the Community Council meeting next week I can give documentary reports,” Baugh added.

Meanwhile, the foreign affairs minister is refuting reports that Marlon Gordon, Jamaican’s honorary consul to Barbados, was removed because of his staunch defence of Jamaicans in Barbados.

A report in Friday’s Jamaica Observer newspaper quoted Gordon as saying that he resigned in January because the Barbados Government was not receptiveto his complaints.

But Baugh, speaking on a radio programme here, said: “That story is not in harmony with what I understand.

“We appointed him to be our honorary consul in Barbados and he was not approved and when we inquired, we learnt the reason why and there were other reasons which I will not go into. I read the article in the Observer and it had nothing to do with that at all. There were other reasons,” he said. (CMC)

The Bocas Lit Fest

The Bocas Lit Fest, based in Trinidad and Tobago, is an annual celebration of books, writing, and writers. Launching in April 2011, the Bocas Lit Fest is an exciting new addition to the Caribbean’s literary calendar. The centrepiece of the festival will be the award ceremony for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, a major new award for Caribbean writers of poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction.

Boca is the Spanish word for mouth — the organ of speech and song and storytelling. And the Bocas del Dragón — the Dragon’s Mouths — are the narrow straits off Trinidad’s northwest peninsula, which connect the sheltered Gulf of Paria to the open Caribbean Sea. For centuries, the Bocas were the gateways connecting Trinidad to the Caribbean and the Atlantic. The Bocas Lit Fest invites readers from around the world to enter through the Dragon’s Mouths and celebrate with us the rich literary heritage of Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean.

The OCM Bocas Debate: first in an annual series of a high-level discussions of burning public-interest topics. This year’s subject: “Press vs. Government: the freedom to print what?”

Visit the official website for the full schedule at: http://www.bocaslitfest.com/schedule.html

BBC Caribbean Service makes final broadcast

The BBC Caribbean Service has made its final broadcast, ending seven decades of programming for the region.

The service is being shut as part of budget cuts announced by the BBC World Service in January.

BBC managers say they have had to make tough choices because of a 16% cut in UK government funding.

But one critic called it a short-sighted decision, showing the BBC did not understand the complexities of the region.

The Macedonian, Albanian, Serbian and Portuguese for Africa services have also been closed in a bid to to save $75m (£46m) a year.

Seven other language services have moved away from radio to focus on online, mobile and television content.

These include Spanish for Latin America which last month ended its remaining radio broadcasts, on short-wave and intended mainly for Cuba.

This week, members of the Caribbean Service team have each presented a final programme, including material from the BBC archives.

Copies of the sound and text content of the service's radio and online output are being donated to the University of the West Indies, which will have a team working at the BBC's Bush House base to catalogue the material.

Regional voice?
E-mails to the Caribbean Service overwhelmingly voiced sadness at its closure.

"It filled a great need for the Caribbean audience to have a view of the world not provided by local radio stations," wrote Jacqueline Sharpe in Trinidad and Tobago.

Regional media commentators have said the demise of the BBC Caribbean Service should spur renewed efforts to create a pan-Caribbean news network.

Read full article here.

Jamaicans abused at Barbados airport

Several Jamaicans who were recently denied entry into Barbados in separate incidents are furious with Barbadian immigration officers after they said they were discriminated against, sexually violated, assaulted, detained, and denied entry for the sole reason that they are Jamaicans.

The complainants also say they were labelled as drug mules as the immigration officers reportedly stereotyped all Jamaicans as being involved in drug trafficking.

One woman, Shanique Myrie, recounted her horror to THE STAR which took place last Monday.

"All you Jamaicans come here to do is either steal people's man or bring drugs here," Myrie said she was told by an immigration officer.

She added that after she arrived in Barbados she told immigration officers that her purpose for visiting was to stay with a friend who she met over the Internet but they did not believe her.

She said that she was immediately escorted to a room where she was questioned by two unidentified persons who continued to accuse her of lying about her reasons for visiting Barbados.

Interestingly, she emphasised that even after she gave them all the contact details for the person she was visiting and her story was verified, immigration officers continued to intimidate her, accused her of being a liar and began degrading all Jamaicans.

strip searched

She said that her luggage was searched for contraband and even when nothing illegal was found, the intimidation continued.

According to Myrie, at one stage she was escorted into a room, where the unidentified man returned with her passport in his hand, showing her that she was cleared to enter Barbados but her entry would be cancelled if she did not tell them the truth.

She maintained her innocence and was then escorted to the bathroom area where she was strip searched, "I felt like I was being raped," Myrie recounted.

Myrie said she was then returned to the room and it was then that the female immigration officer who searched her allegedly told Myrie that, "You are a liar, I don't like you Jamaicans, you are all liars. You think you're going to come here and (mess) up my country. It's not going to happen."

Myrie said she later asked if she could make a call to Jamaica to inform her family of what was taking place, but she was not allowed to do so.

Afterwards, Myrie said she asked if she could contact the Jamaican High Commission but was told by another immigration officer that, "If you know what is good for you, you will shut your mouth,".

Read full article here.

Finger-raped in Barbados

ALLEGATIONS by a Jamaican woman that she was finger-raped by an immigration officer before being thrown out of Barbados, have brought the spotlight on poor treatment of Jamaicans visiting that eastern Caribbean island.
Shanique Myrie complained bitterly to the Observer yesterday that when she attempted to enter Barbados on March 14, 2011, she was subjected to two demeaning cavity searches by a female immigration officer who continuously spewed venom about Jamaicans. It was her first trip out of the island.

Myrie's story was corroborated by former Jamaican honorary consul to Barbados, Marlon Gordon.
Gordon, an attorney, said even though some Jamaicans do enter Barbados and get involved in nefarious activities, that was no excuse for wholesale discrimination against Jamaica nationals.
"This arbitrary kind of behaviour that is being exhibited by the Government in Barbados has to be looked at. You can't penalise an entire nation," Gordon said.
Jamaican Jaydene Thomas, a former journalist and now a practising attorney in Barbados, said the Jamaican foreign ministry had for too long ignored the cries of Jamaicans who suffered at the hands of Barbadians when they visited that island.
"Every time that a flight arrives from Jamaica, the nothing-to-declare line is automatically closed, she said. "We are treated like criminals by the authorities."
Myrie, in relating her story to the Observer said: "The lady took me into a bathroom and told me to take off my clothes. I did as requested. After searching me and my clothes she found no contraband or narcotics. She then asked me to bend over, open my legs and spread (my private parts). She said that if I did not comply then she would see that I end up in prison in Barbados.


Read full article here.

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Finger-raped-in-Barbados_8573453#ixzz1HZX5AQAX

Tighter rules for UK student visas

By Sean Coughlan
BBC News education correspondent


Theresa May: "We will toughen up the entry requirements"

The rules for student visas into the UK are to be much tougher - after fears that this route of entry is being used dishonestly.

Home Secretary Theresa May said student visas were being abused and "too many were here to work and not to study".

She announced plans to cut the number of student visas by up to 80,000 - about a quarter of the current numbers.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper warned that rules must not damage an industry worth £5bn a year.

Mrs May told the House of Commons that the misuse of student visas had become a "symbol of a broken and abused immigration system".

Language rules
Tightening rules to stop false applications would be "in the best interests of legitimate students," she said.

The tougher rules will include a requirement for students to be able to speak English.

Mrs May said she wanted to end the situation where would-be students arrived at UK airports unable to even describe the courses they were about to begin.

There will also be tighter regulations on allowing the dependents of students to join them in the UK - and less flexibility in the number of years that overseas students can spend in the UK after courses are finished.

In response to concerns that students visas are being misused by economic migrants, there will be limits on the hours of paid work which overseas students will be allowed to carry out.

Universities had previously expressed fears about the loss of overseas students from tighter visa rules - but Universities UK said that their concerns had been taken into account.

Students at the University of Surrey discuss speaking English and studying
Many of the restrictions are targeted at students in private colleges - rather than universities.

Language colleges and providers of pre-university entry courses had warned of the damage to their businesses if visa rules make it difficult for legitimate students to enter the UK.

But Mrs May told MPs that such "pathway" courses into universities would be protected, if universities acted as sponsors to students.

Read full story here.

The multiculturalism the European right fears so much is a fiction – it never existed

On 12 March 1983 A Sivanandan, one of the sharpest minds on the British left, gave a talk at the Greater London Council Ethnic Minorities Unit Consultation on Challenging Racism. "I come as a heretic, as a disbeliever in the efficacy of ethnic policies and programmes to alter, by one iota, the monumental and endemic racism of this society. There is nothing wrong with multiracial or multicultural education as such … But [it] has become the vogue … Government monies for pluralist ploys – the development of a parallel power structure for black people, separate development, Bantustans – a strategy to keep race issues from contaminating class issues."

The left has long had a critique of multiculturalism. While Tories were still arguing for Nelson Mandela's imprisonment, there were progressive voices debating its inadequacies, limitations and potential. The notion that those who attack it today, in Britain or elsewhere, are slaughtering a holy cow is laughable.

But Sivanandan was contesting something definite, whereas the target of the more recent onslaught is vague. Over the last decade multiculturalism, like political correctness, has come to mean whatever its opponents want it to, so long as they don't like it. Usually, the policies and dilemmas referred to are difficult to fathom or entirely invented. Ill-defined, the term is much-maligned – a lightning rod for the majoritarian impulses, cultural anxieties, economic insecurities and nationalist mythologies of the 21st century. Its contemporary critics keep telling multiculturalism's supporters to admit it has failed, without identifying what "it" is and who ever supported the lampooned version they present.

In this debate there are two types of multiculturalism: one rooted in fact, the other in fiction. The multiculturalism of fact is the lived experience of most people in Europe and the world. Cultures are dynamic, and emerge organically from communities. None exist in isolation or remain static. So the presence of a range of cultures in Britain or anywhere else is not novel, but the norm.

Read full article here.

New migrant boat lands in Italy from Tunisia

A boat carrying 347 illegal migrants from Tunisia has reached Italy, raising fears of a new wave of crossings after a week of bad weather.

The fishing boat brought the migrants to the tiny island of Lampedusa, less than 160km (100 miles) across the Mediterranean from the Tunisian coast.

Thousands have arrived since mid-February, amid unrest in Tunisia.

Italy's Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, said there were fears of illegal migration from Libya too.

There were, he said, 1.5 million illegal migrants inside Libya.

"They are now fleeing to the west [Tunisia] and to the east [Egypt] but I expect in the future they could also head north [towards Italy]," he told parliament.

Mr Maroni, a member of the anti-immigration Northern League, warned of a "catastrophic humanitarian emergency" when he met fellow EU interior ministers in Brussels last week.

Other EU officials said Rome was over-reacting to the crisis across the Mediterranean.

Read full article here.