Persecution of Rastafari

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Religious persecution
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Persecution of members of the Rastafari movement, a group founded in Jamaica in the early 1930s and who worship Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia as Almighty God, has been fairly continuous since the movement began but nowadays is particularly concerning their spiritual use of cannabis, an illegal drug almost everywhere in the world.

The first Rastafari to appear in a court was Leonard Howell in Jamaica in 1934 who was charged with sedition for refusing to accept George V of the United Kingdom as his King, instead insisting that he was only loyal to Selassie I and Ethiopia. He was found guilty and sentenced to several years in prison. In the Jamaica of the 1950s and 1960s, Rastafari suffered considerable persecution by the authorities, including the forceable cutting of their dreadlocks, another religious symbol for them. Attitudes began to change when Selassie I visited Jamaica in April 1966. The popularisation of Rastafari through reggae music, and especially through the heroic status of Bob Marley have made the Rastafari far more acceptable than they were, though their use of cannabis remains as controversial as ever.