Jamaica to review laws on Rastas

 

Field of dreams.
Field of dreams.

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Prime Minister Andrew Holness has undertaken to have cabinet review the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People for its implications for the Jamaican Rastafari community.

Holness gave the undertaking at a Jamaica House meeting with a delegation from the Rastafari Millennium Council (RMC), who visited him last week on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the historic visit to Jamaica of the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie in 1966.

The 10-member team of Rastafarians, including reggae star Bunny ‘Wailer’ Livingstone, former Columbia Records executive Maxine Stowe and attorney Hannah Harris Barrington, met Holness, and Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange inside the courtesy room at Jamaica House.

Barrington, born in England of Jamaican parentage, pleaded for the PM’s support of the RMC’s efforts to get parliamentary acknowledgement of the UN 2007 declaration and its implications for the Rastafari community in Jamaica.