* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty
International *
26 February 2001
ACT 40/013/2001
31/01
The release of the report, "Stopping The Torture Trade", is the
latest step in Amnesty International's Stop Torture Campaign,
launched in October 2000.
What is torture?
Torture does not happen in a vacuum. The tools and techniques
used by officials for deliberately inflicting physical suffering
rely on a failure of political will. If the governments of the
world had the will to stop torture, they could do so.
Torture and ill-treatment are prohibited in all circumstances
under international law. The United Nations Convention against
Torture refers to the deliberate and purposeful infliction of
"severe pain and suffering, whether physical or mental" on a
person "by or at the instigation of or with the consent or
acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an
official capacity".
Judicial corporal punishments and cruel, inhuman or degrading
conditions of detention are among the abuses which Amnesty
International opposes under the heading of torture and
ill-treatment.
The tools and techniques of the trade
Companies and individuals around the world are involved in
providing devices and expertise that are in a few cases
deliberately designed for torture, and in more cases are
ostensibly designed and supplied for security and crime control
purposes, but which in reality can easily lend themselves to
torture or are often supplied without hesitation to security
forces who are known to abuse legitimate devices and techniques
to inflict torture. This is a global trade in goods and services
involving countries on every continent and is therefore the
responsibility of governments in every region.
High Voltage Electro-shock stun weapons
The burgeoning design and use of various types of high voltage
electro-shock stun weaponry is presented by companies and
officials as a legitimate way of deploying "less-than-lethal"
force. However, various types of such weaponry have been used for
the torture and ill-treatment of people in many prisons,
detention centres and police stations in every region of the
world. Amnesty International has evidence that electro-shock stun
batons have been used to extract confessions and to intimidate
and silence activists, while the use of electro-shock devices is
known to be one of the most common methods of inflicting torture
in some states. Stun guns, stun shields, stun belts and tear gas
stun weapons are also used to shock and incapacitate people with
severe pain. The effects on victims, and whether these conform
with international human rights standards, have not been
subjected to independent and rigorous testing.
The US innovation of the stun belt is one of the most disturbing
development to emerge recently in the field of electro-shock
technology. It is worn by the prisoner, sometimes for hours at a
time with the constant threat that it can be activated at any
time. The belt works by remote control; the police or prison
officer using the device can be as far as 90 metres away. On
activation, a typical stun belt delivers an eight-second shock of
50,000 volts. This high-pulse current enters the wearer's body at
the site of the electrodes, near the kidneys, and passes through
the body. The shock causes incapacitation in the first few
seconds and severe pain rising during the eight seconds. The
electro-shock cannot be stopped once activated. The belt relies
on the prisoner's constant fear of severe pain being inflicted at
any time while held in a situation of powerlessness.
In the words of Dennis Kaufman, President of Stun Tech Inc, a US
manufacturer of stun belts: "Electricity speaks every language
known to man. No translation necessary. Everybody is afraid of
electricity, and rightfully so."
It appears that torturers often prefer to use electro-shock
weapons largely because they can inflict great pain without
leaving permanent marks on the victim's body. Although the
consequences of electro-shock torture vary depending on what
equipment is used and how, the immediate effects can include
severe pain, loss of muscle control, nausea, convulsions,
fainting, and involuntary defecation and urination. The physical
traces of electro-shock torture, such as skin reddening and
scarring, usually fade within weeks. However, more lasting
effects which have been reported include muscle stiffness,
long-term damage to teeth and hair, post-traumatic stress
disorder and severe depression.
Mechanical restraints
Handcuffs, leg irons, leg-cuffs, shackles, chains, shackle
boards, restraint chairs and thumbcuffs are some of the most
widely used security devices. They are also widely misused. In
every region of the world they have been used repeatedly and
persistently to violate prisoners' human rights. Some of this
equipment, such as leg irons, chains and serrated thumbcuffs, are
without doubt inherently cruel, inhuman and degrading when used
on prisoners and should be banned, but are offered for sale.
A number of former prisoners have reported that the restraints
used on them in Saudi Arabia were stamped with the name Smith &
Wesson, a US company, or Hiatts, a UK company. Another Spanish
company, Larrańaga y Elorza has agents in several countries ?
including Chile, Pakistan, Thailand and Yemen ? where restraint
devices have reportedly been misused.
Chemical devices
Police and security forces also utilise an array of chemical
devices, promoted on the grounds that they provide an alternative
to lethal force but are in reality often misused, resulting in
serious injury and even death. There have also been many reports
of excessive use of force by police where powerful chemical
sprays and tear gas were sprayed directly onto crowds in confined
spaces resulting in serious injuries and deaths. Such devices
have also been sprayed by police onto individuals at close
quarters in the street or used by prison officers against
individual prisoners, sometimes with fatal consequences.
In July 1997, Zambian police used tear gas to break up a peaceful
protest march to Lusaka city centre. After this tragic event,
tear gas was re-supplied from the UK in 1999 despite the lack of
training and accountability of the Zambian police.
In July 1997 Kenyan paramilitary police stormed the All Saints
Anglican Cathedral in Nairobi. Pro-reform activists had taken
refuge there after police violently dispersed their peaceful
protest. Police threw tear gas canisters into the building and
then moved in wielding truncheons. Many people were injured, some
seriously. AI obtained some of the tear gas canisters and plastic
bullets used and traced them back to manufacturers in the UK.
This triggered a campaign by AI members to put pressure on the UK
government and the companies concerned to stop their trade in
equipment used in repression. Subsequently the UK government
declared that it had rejected Ł1.5 million of licence
applications for riot control equipment ? including batons and
tear gas ? to Kenyan police because of human rights concerns. In
June 1999, 2,000 police on horseback charged peaceful
demonstrators calling for democratic change. Police beat the
protesters, fired tear gas at them and used water-cannon to fire
a mixture of water and tear gas, reportedly mixed with an
irritant and a dye, directly into crowds who had nowhere to run.
The manufacturer of the tear gas this time was a French-based
company.
Training in techniques used for torture
The unregulated supply of devices used to inflict pain and
suffering is not the only method by which businesses and states
can facilitate the infliction of torture. There is also a growing
transfer by states and companies of techniques used in military,
security and police operations, and the five permanent members of
the UN Security Council are among the main providers of
international military and security assistance. Unless such
training is stringently controlled and independently monitored,
there is always a danger that it will be used to facilitate human
rights violations.
For example, in September 1996 the US Department of Defense
released evidence that the US-run School of the Americas for
Latin American officers had used so-called "intelligence training
manuals" between 1982 and 1991 that advocated execution, torture,
beatings and blackmail. The US manuals, written in Spanish, were
used to train thousands of Latin American security force agents.
Copies of these manuals were distributed in Colombia, Ecuador,
El Salvador, Peru and Guatemala. No US laws were broken in the
preparation, distribution and use of these materials. As a result
no one has been held accountable for the development and use of
the manuals. Indeed US officials even refused to discipline those
responsible for producing or using these manuals on the grounds
that there was no "deliberate attempt to violate" US policy.
The United States is not alone. In May 1999 AI published a
report, "Togo: Rule of Terror", which described decades of
intimidation, torture, "disappearance" and killings by Togolese
security forces against the civilian population. The report also
detailed the assistance that France had given to the government
of President Gnassingbé Eyadéma. Indeed, a high-ranking officer
in the Togolese gendarmerie accused by Togo's National
Commission for Human Rights of ordering the torture of four
people in August 1990, was subsequently awarded the decoration of
the National Order of Merit by the French government.
The Israeli security forces have been implicated in the regime at
the infamous Khiam detention centre in South Lebanon, where
torture was routine and systematic until its closure in May 2000.
Although Israelis may not have been involved in the day-to-day
running of Khiam, it is clear that they paid and trained the
guards and interrogators and used the information extracted under
torture. Their position as paymasters and advisors meant they
were well placed to secure a halt to Khiam's terrible regime of
neglect, cruelty and torture. Instead they supported it.
Manufacturers, distributors, suppliers and brokers
New ongoing research by Amnesty International reveals that during
1998-2000 at least 185 businesses in 25 countries were involved
in the manufacture, distribution, supply or brokering of devices
that are always or sometimes used to inflict torture. Of these,
the United States is by far the most prolific, with at least 74
US companies involved in marketing electro-shock weapons, leg
irons, shackles, thumbcuffs and other restraints. Other countries
with several such companies include China, France, Russia,
Germany, United Kingdom, Poland, Israel, South Africa, Brazil,
Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan.
US authorities have permitted new devices such as high voltage
electro-shock weapons to be marketed and sold to law enforcement
agencies in other countries with a minimum of public scrutiny,
with no proper impartial testing, and without regulation of
design and use. Between 1998-2000, 42 US companies produced or
offered to supply electro-shock stun weapons. A further 30 German
companies made or marketed the weapons, as did 19 Taiwanese
companies, 14 French, 13 South Korean, 12 Chinese, 9 South
African, 8 Israeli, 6 Mexican, 5 Polish, 4 Russian, 3 Brazilian,
3 Spanish and 2 Czech Republic. Sometimes, as in the case of
Spain and the United Kingdom, companies have brokered the sale of
electro-shock weapons entirely through foreign, claiming that
this "off-shore" trade was legal even though the weapons have
been banned at home.
The range of electro-shock stun devices now available around the
world has expanded throughout the 1990s and companies offering to
supply have spread to Austria, Canada, Indonesia, Kuwait,
Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Philippines, Romania and
Turkey. This has increased enormously the availability of such
weapons to security forces that practice torture because even
where this is not tolerated domestically, so many of these states
have weak export controls. The US government has allowed such
modern electro-shock weapons to be transferred by US companies to
Turkey (electro-shock shields), Indonesia (stun guns) and Saudi
Arabia (taser guns and electro-shock batons and shields), all
countries where electro-shock torture has been reported.
Again, US companies have been by far the most numerous suppliers
of mechanical restraints, including leg-irons and thumbcuffs.
Data for 1990 to 2000 obtained by Amnesty International with
assistance from the Omega Foundation shows that US companies
constituted at least 42 out of at least 68 firms identified as
offering to provide such devices, and 7 out of the 15
manufacturers found world-wide. Other suppliers were found in
Germany (8), France (5), China (3), Taiwan (3), South Africa (2),
Spain (2), the United Kingdom (2) and South Korea (1).
Patterns of torture and abuse
Instead of proper regulation, governments are allowing their own
forces and companies to offer security products and techniques to
states with a persistent record of torture. Torture is not
confined to military dictatorships or authoritarian regimes; it
is also inflicted in democratic states. Moreover, it is clear
that the victims of torture are criminal suspects as well as
political prisoners, the disadvantaged as well as the dissident,
people targeted because of their identity as well as their
beliefs. They are women as well as men, children as well as
adults.
Middle East
Electro-shock torture is one of the most common methods reported
in Egypt. While held at the SSI office in Faraana, Alexandria,
Mohammed Naguib Abu-Higazi was stripped of his clothes and given
electric shocks from a "cylinder shaped stick with a spiral metal
wire". He was also reportedly deprived of food for three days,
kept blindfolded throughout the entire nine-day detention period
and threatened with sexual assault.
Asia
In 1997 in Taiwan Liu Ping-lang and two others were sentenced to
death for a double murder committed in 1991, despite strong
indications that they were innocent. Another detainee said he saw
Liu Ping-lang being held down in another chair while police used
a cattle prod to apply electric shocks to his genitals and
witnessed Chuan Lin-hsuing being beaten on the head.
Americas
Several cases of abuse with restraints and electro-shock weapons
in the USA are cited in the report. Scott Norberg died in Madison
St Jail, Maricopa County, Arizona, USA, in 1996. He died from
asphyxia after being placed in a restraint chair with a towel
wrapped over his face after he refused to leave his cell. Before
being strapped into the chair he was hit more than 20 times with
an electro-shock stun gun. The following year officials informed
Amnesty International representatives that the jail system had 16
restraint chairs which had been used about 600 times in six
months.
Africa
In April 1998, the South African prison authorities were
reportedly considering buying stun belts from the USA. In August
1999, information from South African prison officials confirmed
that a stun belt had begun to be used at a maximum security
prison in Pretoria during the transportation of some prisoners.
In August 2000, the South African High Commission in Singapore
promoted the supply of stun belts and stun shields from a South
African company.
Europe
In May 1993 Hungarian police investigating a car theft raided a
Romani community in Béke utca in Orkény, about 50 kilometres
south of Budapest. Lakatos Lászlóné, a 55-year-old woman, fainted
and was taken to hospital after an officer beat her, ripped off
her tracheotomy tube and sprayed tear gas in her face. Fehér
Péterné, who was five months pregnant, tried to protect Lakatos
Lászlóné as she lay unconscious. She too was beaten and sprayed
with tear gas. She later required medical treatment for her
injuries. No action is known to have been taken against the
police officers responsible.
Even in countries that claim to strictly regulate the use of tear
gas it can be abused. In 1999 a report by the UK Police
Complaints Authority revealed that in 40 per cent of the 135
cases reviewed, CS gas had not been used in self-defence, that
is, contrary to guidelines. In 14 per cent of cases CS gas had
been used on people already physically restrained by police
officers; in four per cent of cases the person had already been
handcuffed.
What action is Amnesty International calling for?
Within the report Amnesty International calls in detail for
changes to be made to the way governments licence the
manufacture, trade and use of equipment designed for use by
military, security and police personnel. In particular, Amnesty
International calls upon governments to:
1) Ban the use of police and security equipment whose use is
inherently cruel, inhuman or degrading. Ban the manufacture and
promotion of this equipment and its trade to other countries.
This should include leg irons, electro-shock stun belts and
inherently painful devices such as serrated thumb-cuffs.
2) Suspend the international transfer of electro-shock,
leg-cuffs, thumbcuffs, shackle boards, restraint chairs and
pepper gas weapons pending the outcome of a rigorous and
independent review into the effects of these devices. Suspend the
use of high voltage electro-shock weapons pending the outcome of
this review.
3) Ensure that the training of military, security and police
personnel of another country does not include the transfer of
skills, knowledge and techniques likely to lend themselves to
torture.
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