The Prohibited and Unlawful Societies and Associations Act

Last updated February 02, 2024

The Prohibited and Unlawful Societies and Associations Act, also known as The Dread Act, was a 1974 Dominica law that was designed to combat Rastafari.

Origins

Rastafari was brought to Dominica in the early 1970s by students returning from studying abroad in the United States and Trinidad. The Rasta ideology spread through the ranks of educated young men and then down into the lower classes. Government officials became alarmed by the movement's anti-Catholic stance, use of marijuana and acceptance of socialism.^[1]

Provisions

According to the law, adherents of Rastafari wearing their hair in dreadlocks (referred to as "Dreads") were subject to arrest without a warrant, were not permitted bail and could be held without charges for at least 48 hours. The law also prohibited the prosecution of any individual who killed or injured a "Dread" inside a place of residence.^[1]

Legislative history

Prime Minister Patrick John and the Dominica Labour Party spearheaded the effort to pass the bill in the House of Assembly of Dominica. The bill was passed unopposed by members of the Dominica Freedom Party.

Impact

As a result of the act, Dominica residents and law enforcement were granted immunity from prosecution for assaulting or murdering Rastafarians. During the years the act was in effect, Rastafarians were arrested, beaten and killed. Some sources also report that adherents had their dreadlocks forcibly cut off during this time,^[1] while others cut their own hair and left the movement to avoid persecution.^[2] Many Rastafarians fled into the rainforest to escape the effects of the Dread Act.

In 1975, the government announced an amnesty for "Dreads" living in the forests. However, these groups did not trust the government and refused to accept.^[3] The government then established an eight-person task force to decide on the matter. The committee, led by Reverend A. Didier, concluded that the majority of Dominica's "Dread" population was made up of peaceful activists and that the Dread Act should be annulled and replaced by a new law designed to combat terrorism. However, the government rejected the committee's findings.^[2]

Repeal

Eugenia Charles voiced opposition to the bill shortly after it was passed, but took no steps to repeal it during her tenure as a House representative.^[4] When Charles became prime minister in 1980, she initially decided not to repeal the act. However, after "Dreads" living in the woods kidnapped a prominent citizen, the government decided to revamp the strict parameters of the Dread Act.^[2]

On February 16, 1981, the House of Assembly passed the Prevention of Terrorism Temporary Provisions Act, finally acting on the recommendation of the Didier Committee. Section 18 of the new legislation repealed the Dread Act.^[4]

Related Research Articles

Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control of the movement and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as Rastafari, Rastafarians, or Rastas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dreadlocks</span> Rope-like braiding hairstyle

Dreadlocks, also known as dreads or locs, are a hairstyle made of rope-like strands of hair. This is done by not combing the hair and allowing the hair to mat naturally or by twisting it manually. Over time the hair will form tight braids or ringlets.

The Bobo Ashanti, also known as the Ethiopian African Black International Congress (EABIC), is a religious group originating in Bull Bay near Kingston, Jamaica. The title of Bobo Ashanti essentially means "Black warrior".

The Sedition Act of 1918 was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 (POTA) was an Act passed by the Parliament of India in 2002, with the objective of strengthening anti-terrorism operations. The Act was enacted due to several terrorist attacks that were being carried out in India and especially in response to the attack on the Parliament. The Act replaced the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) of 2001 and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) (1985–1995), and was supported by the governing National Democratic Alliance. The Act was repealed in 2004 by the United Progressive Alliance coalition.

The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, formally introduced into Parliament on 19 November 2001, two months after the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September. It received royal assent and came into force on 14 December 2001. Many of its measures are not specifically related to terrorism, and a Parliamentary committee was critical of the swift timetable for such a long bill including non-emergency measures.

Patrick Roland John was the first Prime Minister of Dominica as well as its last Premier. He led Dominica to independence from the United Kingdom. He was leader of the Waterfront and Allied Workers' Union and mayor of Roseau before being elected to the legislature in 1970. He became Premier in 1974 following the resignation of Edward Oliver LeBlanc. After mass protest forced him to resign, John unsuccessfully attempted in 1981 to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Eugenia Charles with the backing of white supremacist groups. As a result, he was jailed for twelve years, of which he served five years.

Leonard Percival Howell, also known as The Gong or G.G. Maragh, was a Jamaican religious figure. According to his biographer Hélène Lee, Howell was born into an Anglican family. He was one of the first preachers of the Rastafari movement, and is known by many as The First Rasta.

Iyaric, also called Dread Talk, is a language consciously created by members of the Rastafari movement. When Africans were taken into captivity as a part of the slave trade, English was imposed as a colonial language and their traditional African languages were lost. In defiance, the Rastafari movement created a modified English vocabulary and dialect, with the aim of liberating their language from its history as a tool of colonial oppression. This is accomplished by avoiding sounds and words with negative connotations, such as "back", and changing them to positive ones. Iyaric sometimes also plays a liturgical role among Rastas, in addition to Amharic and Ge'ez.

Dame Mary Eugenia Charles, was a Dominican politician who was Prime Minister of Dominica from 21 July 1980 until 14 June 1995. The first female lawyer in Dominica, she was Dominica's first, and to date only, female prime minister. She was the second female prime minister in the Caribbean after Lucina da Costa of the Netherlands Antilles. She was the first female in the Americas to be elected in her own right as head of government. She served for the second longest period of any Dominican prime minister, and was the world's fourth longest-serving female Prime Minister, behind Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka and Indira Gandhi of India.

Title V: Removing obstacles to investigating terrorism is the fifth of ten titles which comprise the USA PATRIOT Act, an anti-terrorism bill passed in the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks. It contains 8 sections regarding the capture and prosecution of terrorists.

Anti-terrorism legislation are laws with the purpose of fighting terrorism. They usually, if not always, follow specific bombings or assassinations. Anti-terrorism legislation usually includes specific amendments allowing the state to bypass its own legislation when fighting terrorism-related crimes, under alleged grounds of necessity.

Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, commonly known as the Labouchere Amendment, made "gross indecency" a crime in the United Kingdom. In practice, the law was used broadly to prosecute male homosexuals where actual sodomy could not be proven. The penalty of life imprisonment for sodomy was also so harsh that successful prosecutions were rare. The new law was much more enforceable. Section 11 was repealed and re-enacted by section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, which in turn was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which partially decriminalised male homosexual behaviour.

The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) of 2006 is a United States federal law that prohibits any person from engaging in certain conduct "for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise." The statute covers any act that either "damages or causes the loss of any real or personal property" or "places a person in reasonable fear" of injury.

Persecution of members of the Rastafari movement, an Abrahamic religion founded in Jamaica in the early 1930s among Afro-Jamaican communities, has been fairly continuous since the movement began but nowadays is particularly concerning their spiritual use of cannabis.

The Neutrality Act of 1794 was a United States law which made it illegal for a United States citizen to wage war against any country at peace with the United States. The Act declares in part:

If any person shall within the territory or jurisdiction of the United States begin or set on foot or provide or prepare the means for any military expedition or enterprise ... against the territory or dominions of any foreign prince or state of whom the United States was at peace that person would be guilty of a misdemeanor.

The Vagrancy Act 1824 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that makes it an offence to sleep rough or beg in England and Wales. The legislation was passed in Georgian England to combat the increasing number of people forced to live on the streets due to the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars and the social effects of the Industrial Revolution. Critics of the law included politician and abolitionist, William Wilberforce, who condemned the Act for making it a catch-all offence for vagrancy with no consideration of the circumstances as to why an individual might be homeless.

The Enforcement Act of 1870, also known as the Civil Rights Act of 1870 or First Ku Klux Klan Act, or Force Act, is a United States federal law that empowers the President to enforce the first section of the Fifteenth Amendment throughout the United States. The act was the first of three Enforcement Acts passed by the United States Congress in 1870 and 1871, during the Reconstruction Era, to combat attacks on the voting rights of African Americans from state officials or violent groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

Christianity is the most widely professed religion in Malawi, with significant populations of the adherents of Islam and traditional faiths. Religious pluralism is both a prominent social value and enshrined in the country's constitution.

The status of religious freedom in North America varies from country to country. States can differ based on whether or not they guarantee equal treatment under law for followers of different religions, whether they establish a state religion, the extent to which religious organizations operating within the country are policed, and the extent to which religious law is used as a basis for the country's legal code.

References

1 2 3 Wessinger, Catherine, ed. (2000). Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases. Syracuse University Press. p. 102.
1 2 3 Nathaniel Samuel Murrell; William David Spencer; Adrian Anthony McFarlane (1998). Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader. Temple University Press. p. 187.
↑ Frank Jan van Dijk (1993). Jahmaica: Rastafari and Jamaican Society, 1930-1990. Utrecht University. p. 244. ISBN 9051871643.
1 2 Eudine Barriteau; Alan Gregor Cobley (2006). Enjoying Power: Eugenia Charles and Political Leadership in the Commonwealth Caribbean. University of the West Indies Press. p. 54–5. ISBN 9766401918.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[wessinger-1] 1 2 3 Wessinger, Catherine, ed. (2000). Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases. Syracuse University Press. p. 102.

[chanting-2] 1 2 3 Nathaniel Samuel Murrell; William David Spencer; Adrian Anthony McFarlane (1998). Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader. Temple University Press. p. 187.

[3] Frank Jan van Dijk (1993). Jahmaica: Rastafari and Jamaican Society, 1930-1990. Utrecht University. p. 244. ISBN 9051871643.

[power-4] 1 2 Eudine Barriteau; Alan Gregor Cobley (2006). Enjoying Power: Eugenia Charles and Political Leadership in the Commonwealth Caribbean. University of the West Indies Press. p. 54–5. ISBN 9766401918.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]