I've raised £20000 to fund an historic legal challenge to remove the discriminatory "buggery" law in Trinidad & Tobago that criminalize LGBTQI+ people --Part 2
Organised by Jason Jones
Story
In my home country of Trinidad and Tobago, until April 12th of this year, I could be arrested and imprisoned for up to 25 years for having consensual sex with my male partner.
Any sexual intimacy between couples of the same sex was a crime (including sex between women). My government calls these acts “serious indecency”. They could imprison us for up to 25 years for penetrative sex and for 5 years for any other act of sexual intimacy. Gay and bi men, lesbian and bi women, trans people, all lived with the threat of this criminal law hanging over them.
My name is Jason Jones and I am a human rights defender. I challenged my Government in the High Court to change this situation and on April 12th 2018 the Court agreed to declare these laws unconstitutional. WE WON!!!
In his ruling on my case Justice Rampersad said:
...it is unfortunate when society in any way values a person or gives a person their identity based on their race,color,gender, age or sexual orientation. That is not their identity, that is not their soul. That is not the sum total of their value to society or their value to themselves. The experiences of apartheid South Africa and the USA during and after slavery, even into the mid and late 20th century, have shown the depth that human dignity has been plunged as a result of presupposed and predetermined prejudices based on factors that do not accept or recognize humanity.
My government is challenging this verdict; defending the archaic and discriminatory laws. On September 20th 2018, my legal team and I will again go before the courts to state our case that the High Court ruling should be upheld and this unjust law struck down.
But there's still work left to do to get us there.
We fell short of the last goal by £5,000 and I still need to raise at least £15,000 for my upcoming September Court case: for Court fees, transport and security for my lawyers, and the cost of printing documents for Court. Litigation is not cheap, even when you have the best lawyers working for you for free!
Your donation will ensure that 100,000 LGBTQ+ people have their day in Court, so that we can ensure the barbaric laws that criminalise us for being lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans are struck down for good.
