*Ø* Blogmanac | Governments must tackle the "pain merchants"

Amnesty International
2 December

"Governments' failure to control the expanding trade in and use of security equipment is contributing to the incidence of torture and ill-treatment, reveals Amnesty International in its new report 'The Pain Merchants'.

"The latest research by the human rights organization highlights how a wide range of police and prison services are misusing old technologies and being encouraged to use new ones despite a lack of rigorous testing to establish if they are consistent with international human rights standards:

· Steel batons with spikes have been offered for sale at a police equipment fair in China.

· A metal and plastic projectile fired by a police officer permanently injured a woman in Switzerland in March this year, leaving fragments in her face which cannot be removed for fear of paralysis. This occurred before any other means of control had been attempted.

· More than nine tonnes of leg irons (an implement banned by UN rules for the treatment of prisoners) were exported from the USA to Saudi Arabia during 2002.

· Since the report went to press AI has discovered a South African government tender notice of 31 October 2003 calling for bids for the supply to the Department of Correctional Services of leg irons and belly chains, as well as electronic riot shields.

· The UK government has authorised trials on Britain's streets of the taser gun -- which delivers a 50,000 volt electric shock through two darts fired from a distance, or can also be used up close as a stun gun. In AI's opinion it has yet to publish full medical tests on the taser's effects.

· Sedative chemical incapacitating agents such as the one which killed more than 120 hostages when Russian security forces ended a siege in a Moscow theatre last year should be banned unless it can be proved that people will be protected from any indiscriminate or arbitrary effects.

"'Just because security equipment may be described as 'less than lethal' does not mean it cannot be abused, nor that it cannot injure or kill, said Brian Wood, Amnesty Internationals expert on security equipment. "We are extremely concerned that in many countries devices are being authorised for use on the population without sufficient investigation of their effects on human rights.' ...

Background:
Amnesty International reported torture by police or security forces in 106 countries last year.

There are now at least 856 companies in 47 countries involved in the manufacture or marketing of weapons described as being a "less than lethal" alternative to firearms, many of which easily lend themselves to torture.

Stopping the Pain Merchants, take action!

For more information see "The Pain Merchants: Facts and Figures"

THE PAIN MERCHANTS -
Security equipment and its use in torture and other ill-treatment
The full report online