The Use of Political Psychiatry & Law to Silence Rastafari

The Struggle for Human Rights in Jamaica

A Case Study by Karen Francis for Empress Menen Human Rights Institute

Abstract

For over a century, Jamaica’s justice system has served not merely as a court of law, but as an instrument of control against those who dared to assert Black divinity, African identity, or human dignity. This paper examines the continuum of judicial persecution and psychiatric repression from Marcus Mosiah Garvey, through Leonard Percival Howell, to Lancelott Watson, three men whose lives reveal a persistent pattern of state-sanctioned silencing of Rastafari and African consciousness.

The study traces how the colonial logic of “madness and sedition” evolved into a modern form of political psychiatry, where dissenters are pathologized instead of heard, medicated instead of remedied. Using domestic and international legal frameworks — including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders — this paper demonstrates how Jamaica’s legal and medical systems continue to violate their obligations under both national and international law.

Ultimately, it calls for:

• The vacatur of Garvey’s conviction;

• Official exoneration and National Hero status for Leonard Howell;

• Immediate remedy and reparations for Lancelott Watson; and

• A national reckoning with the use of psychiatry and the courts as tools of repression.

This paper is both a legal appeal and a spiritual act — a demand for truth, redemption, and reparation under National Law, International Law, and Divine Law.

Introduction: Law, Faith, and the Colonial Inheritance

The history of Jamaica’s legal system cannot be told without acknowledging its colonial origins. The courts were established not to protect liberty, but to preserve hierarchy — a hierarchy that placed the colonizer’s reason above the colonized’s humanity. Laws that once regulated slavery evolved into laws that criminalized resistance, and later into medical doctrines that pathologized Black consciousness.

In the 20th century, this system found new expressions.

• Marcus Garvey was prosecuted for sedition for teaching self-reliance and African pride.

• Leonard Howell was institutionalized at Bellevue Hospital for proclaiming the divinity of Emperor Haile Selassie I.

• Lancelott Watson, in our own time, faces psychiatric control under state instruction for asserting his rights as a disabled man and a Rastafari believer.

Each represents a stage in Jamaica’s evolution from colonial domination to postcolonial repression. Together, they form a single legal and moral narrative — the criminalization of enlightenment.

This paper contends that Rastafari persecution is not merely historical; it continues in the structures of Jamaica’s courts, hospitals, and bureaucracies. To heal the nation, we must acknowledge and remedy the historical and ongoing weaponization of law and psychiatry against those who proclaim divine truth and social justice.

Case I: Marcus Mosiah Garvey — Law as an Instrument of Empire

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940), Jamaica’s first National Hero, was the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and one of the most visionary Pan-African leaders in modern history. His message — “Africa for the Africans, at home and abroad” — ignited a global movement for self-determination, unity, and pride among African peoples.

The Legal Context

In 1923, Garvey was convicted in the United States for mail fraud related to the Black Star Line shipping enterprise. The trial was widely condemned as politically motivated, orchestrated by the U.S. government to dismantle the largest Black economic organization in the world. The lead prosecutor’s bias and the absence of Black jurors violated fundamental principles of due process.

Even more tellingly, Garvey’s ideas were criminalized before his actions. His publications were surveilled, his speeches labeled seditious, and his followers targeted. The law itself became a tool of racial and ideological suppression, reflecting the fear of empowered African consciousness.

Legal Implications for Jamaica

Although the conviction occurred abroad, its effects reverberated in Jamaica. Colonial administrators used it to discredit Garvey’s movement at home, setting a precedent for equating African leadership with criminality. Garvey’s subsequent imprisonment and deportation had chilling effects on local activism, creating a template for silencing reformers through legal manipulation.

Vacatur and Historical Redress

Garvey’s conviction was posthumously recognized as unjust, and in 2012 the Jamaican Parliament formally moved to clear his name. Yet this action remains symbolic rather than judicial. His conviction still stands in foreign and historical records, an enduring stain on international jurisprudence.

To fulfill Jamaica’s moral and legal obligation, the conviction must be vacated in law, not merely acknowledged in spirit. The exoneration of Marcus Garvey would represent a precedent for addressing subsequent injustices — including those suffered by Leonard Howell and Lancelott Watson — as part of a continuous chain of legal redress for Rastafari persecution.

Case II: Leonard Percival Howell — The Birth of Political Psychiatry

If Garvey’s case represents the weaponization of law, then Leonard Percival Howell’s persecution represents the weaponization of medicine.

Born in 1898, Howell — known as “The First Rasta” — was the earliest Jamaican to publicly declare the divinity of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, and to articulate a theology of African liberation that predated global decolonization. His book The Promised Key (1935) and his community at Pinnacle became a nucleus of spiritual and economic independence.

But where Garvey was charged with sedition, Howell was charged with insanity.

From Sedition to Sanity: When Faith Became a Diagnosis

Colonial authorities, unable to prosecute Howell under traditional law for “blasphemy,” turned to psychiatry as the new weapon of repression. The Bellevue Hospital in Kingston, already infamous for its treatment of “socially undesirable” persons, became a site of confinement for political dissenters. Howell was detained there multiple times between the 1930s and 1950s, his spiritual message reframed as a mental disorder.

The diagnosis was never medical; it was political. Howell was persecuted not for illness, but for ideological disobedience — for preaching that God resided not in Europe, but in the heart of the African man.

Pinnacle: A Community Destroyed

In 1941, Howell purchased land at Sligoville and established Pinnacle, a self-sufficient commune grounded in Haile Selassie’s teachings, communal economics, and natural living. It became the physical embodiment of African redemption — and thus, a threat to colonial capitalism and the plantation elite.

In 1954, colonial police, supported by the state, raided Pinnacle, destroying homes, burning crops, and displacing hundreds of residents. This act of cultural genocide mirrored the destruction of Maroon settlements centuries earlier. The state’s intent was clear: to dismantle any model of Black self-governance and spiritual sovereignty.

Legal and Human Rights Implications

Howell’s treatment at Bellevue and the destruction of Pinnacle constitute violations of:

• Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) — freedom of thought, conscience, and religion;

• Article 27 of the ICCPR — protection of minority cultural practices;

• Article 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights — dignity and freedom from degrading treatment.

The state’s actions also meet the modern definition of political psychiatry, recognized by the UN as the misuse of mental-health systems to suppress dissent.

Recognition and Reparation

Today, Howell’s teachings influence reggae, Rastafari, and Jamaica’s global identity — yet his name remains stigmatized, and his legacy remains legally unredressed.The destruction of Pinnacle demands acknowledgment as a crime against cultural heritage and religious freedom.

EMHRI recommends that:

1. Leonard Howell be formally declared a National Hero of Jamaica;

2. The site of Pinnacle be restored as a World Heritage and Cultural Reparation Site;

3. The Bellevue Hospital system be subject to international investigation for its historical role in political psychiatry and unlawful detention.

Case III: Lancelott Watson — The Continuation of the Pattern

Lancelott Watson’s ordeal in 2025 is the modern echo of Howell’s confinement and Garvey’s criminalization — a living testimony that the colonial mindset persists within Jamaica’s legal and psychiatric institutions.

The Facts

Mr. Watson, a disabled senior citizen and human-rights defender, filed a formal complaint under Section 16 of Jamaica’s Disabilities Act alleging abuse, discrimination, and denial of service by public officers, including the Registrar of the Supreme Court. Rather than being referred to the Disabilities Rights Tribunal as the law requires, his notarized complaint was illegally dismissed by a legal officer acting on the Registrar’s instruction.

In retaliation, Mr. Watson was referred for psychiatric treatment under a fabricated diagnosis — the same tactic once used against Howell.He now remains an outpatient of Bellevue Hospital, enduring continued psychological trauma.

Legal Analysis

This case violates:

• Articles 2(3), 7, 9, and 14 of the ICCPR — right to remedy, protection from torture, and fair trial;

• Articles 13 & 33 of the CRPD — access to justice and national monitoring of disability rights;

• UN Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness (1991) — prohibiting forced treatment for political or administrative reasons.

Moreover, the state’s failure to provide an independent tribunal constitutes a breach of Jamaica’s constitutional duty under the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms.

Contemporary Relevance

Mr. Watson’s case exposes the ongoing fusion of legal impunity and medical coercion, demonstrating how state institutions perpetuate injustice under the pretext of care.It also highlights the absence of judicial independence, where state officers shield one another from accountability — a matter now before the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers.

EMHRI’s Position

The Empress Menen Human Rights Institute, under the moral and spiritual guidance of the Haile Selassie I JAH RasTafari Royal Ethiopian Judah Coptic Church, asserts that this pattern of political psychiatry, extending from Garvey to Watson, is not an isolated injustice but a systemic violation of human rights, religious freedom, and Black self-determination.

Legal Analysis and Framework for Reparation

These three cases, spanning 100 years, demonstrate:

1. Continuity of persecution — from colonial sedition laws to modern psychiatry;

2. Structural complicity — the courts, hospitals, and executive offices acting to suppress truth;

3. Denial of remedy — the failure of Jamaica’s legal system to self-correct.

Under international law, the Government of Jamaica bears obligations to:

• Provide effective remedy (ICCPR Article 2(3));

• Investigate torture and degrading treatment (CAT Article 12);

• Protect religious and cultural minorities (ICCPR Article 27, CRPD Article 30);

• Prevent discrimination by State actors (UDHR Article 7).

The CARICOM Reparations Commission also recognizes cultural and psychological oppression as reparable harms. Therefore, EMHRI demands a Reparations for Justice Framework consisting of:

1️⃣ Legal Remedies

• Formal vacatur of Garvey’s conviction in international and Jamaican records.

• Exoneration and National Hero status for Howell.

• Immediate tribunal and financial compensation for Lancelott Watson (USD 3.5 million).

2️⃣ Institutional Remedies

• Independent review of Bellevue Hospital and psychiatric practices.

• Establishment of a Rastafari and Indigenous Justice Commission.

• Creation of a Human Rights and Heritage Center at Pinnacle.

3️⃣ Cultural and Educational Remedies

• Integration of Garvey, Howell, and Watson into Jamaica’s national curriculum.

• Annual Day of Justice and Redemption during Reggae Month.

• Global digital access to EMHRI’s Human Rights Case Archive via the Haile Selassie I MetaVersity.

Conclusion: Justice as Redemption

The stories of Garvey, Howell, and Watson are not separate histories — they are chapters in the same book of redemption.Each suffered under systems designed to silence the African spirit; each, in turn, revealed that truth cannot be confined by prison or prescription.

The Empress Menen Human Rights Institute declares that reparation is not charity — it is justice. The time has come to vacate false judgments, heal national memory, and restore divine order in law.

In the words of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I:

“Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war.”

Let this case study be the first step toward that final peace — where justice becomes not an exception, but the foundation of a righteous nation.