Local media outlets continued to provide a forum for religious dialogue open to participants from all religious groups. Rastafarians continued to report prejudice, while also saying there was increasing societal acceptance and respect for their practices. ![]() In October, three members of a church in Montego Bay were killed in a ritual human sacrifice, prompting calls for action by religious leaders that included increased scrutiny of churches and further cooperation between churches and government entities. Seventh-day Adventists reported that their observance of a Saturday Sabbath was not taken into account by government COVID-19 lockdown restrictions because the government made Saturdays one of only two permitted shopping days, while other denominations negotiated exceptions to COVID-19 movement restrictions for Sunday religious services. In April, a church brought a constitutional challenge stating that the restrictions impaired religious freedom and were applied unequally to religious and secular gatherings. Religious groups, primarily nonmembers of the Jamaica Umbrella Group of Churches, opposed the government’s imposition of movement restrictions and other barriers to free assembly to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Media reported the Jamaica Umbrella Group of Churches in August negotiated an agreement with the Office of the Prime Minister to allow a maximum of 20 attendees in places of worship on Sundays, with streaming services for those unable to attend. Over the course of the year, curfew dates, including for Sundays, fluctuated in response to COVID-19. The government continued compensating individuals from a trust fund it established in 2017 for victims of the 1963 Coral Gardens incident, in which eight persons were killed and hundreds injured in clashes between a Rastafarian farming community and security forces. Rastafarians said the incident underscored misconceptions about the health and cleanliness of people who wear their hair in locs. The Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), an independent government agency responsible for investigating police abuses, investigated a claim that a Rastafarian woman’s locs (also called “dreadlocks”) were cut while she was in police custody in July. A colonial-era law criminalizing the practices of Obeah and Myalism remains in effect but is not enforced. ![]() It prohibits discrimination based on belief. The constitution provides for freedom of religion, including the freedom to worship and to change one’s religion.
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