- The misuse of rubber bullets and other less-lethal weapons by police against peaceful protesters is becoming more common, leading to more injuries and deaths, a new global report says.
In Spain, the use of rubber projectiles has caused at least one death from head trauma and serious injuries to 24 people, including 11 cases of serious eye injuries.
Security forces around the world routinely misuse rubber and plastic bullets and other law enforcement weapons to suppress peaceful protests, causing horrific injuries and deaths, Amnesty International says in a new report released today. which calls for strict controls on its use and a global treaty to regulate its trade.
The report, titled my eye burst and published jointly with the Omega Research Foundation, is based on research conducted in more than 30 countries over more than five years, and documents how thousands of protesters and bystanders have been maimed and dozens have died due to the often reckless and disproportionate use of less lethal weapons for law enforcement purposes, including kinetic impact projectiles such as rubber bullets, as well as shots from rubber-coated pellets and tear gas grenades aimed and fired directly at protesters.
“We believe that global and legally binding controls on the manufacture and trade of less-lethal weapons, including kinetic impact projectiles, as well as effective guidelines on the use of force, are urgently needed to combat the escalating cycle of abuses,” said Patrick Wilcken, Military, Security and Police Researcher at Amnesty International.
Amnesty International and the Omega Research Foundation are 2 of the 30 organizations calling for a UN-endorsed Torture-Free Trade Treatyban the manufacture and trade of inherently abusive kinetic impact projectiles and other law enforcement weapons, and introduce human rights-based controls on trade in the supply of other law enforcement materials, including bullets rubber and plastic.
“The Torture-Free Trade Treaty would prohibit all production and trade in inherently abusive weapons and law enforcement equipment, including inherently dangerous or inaccurate single-impact kinetic projectiles, rubber-coated metal bullets, rubber-coated pellets and multi-round ammunition that have led to vision loss and other serious injuries and deaths around the world,” said Michael Crowley, Research Associate at the Omega Research Foundation.
One person dead and 24 people injured in Spain
In Spain, the National Police and the Civil Guard continue to use rubber bullets, which have caused, in the last two decades, the death of a person, Iñigo Cabacasand 24 serious injuriesincluding 11 cases of severe eye injuriesas has been documentedStop Rubber Bullets”. Amnesty International considers that rubber balls should be prohibited, as they are inherently inaccurate, and because of the high risk of causing serious injuries that their use entails. In addition, remember that they may have contributed to the death of dozens of more people in the episodes of tarajal in 2014 and Melillain 2022.
Autonomous police, such as the Mossos d’Esquadror the Police, They replaced rubber balls with ‘foam’ bullets, the use of which has also caused serious injuries and has been used to disperse crowds, something prohibited by international standards. International Amnesty considers that its use should be discontinued to evaluate los protocols implemented by security forces and technical specifications, while has documented five cases of very serious injuries caused by its use: two people who lost an eye, two people with severe head trauma and another person who lost a testicle, in addition to other cases of impacts on the legs. All of them have had, or have, legal representation of the entity IRIDIA.
Among them is the case of Africaa young woman who was 19 years old when on February 16, 2021, during the protests in Barcelona for the imprisonment of rapper Pablo Hasel, she was hit by a ‘foam’ bullet by the Mossos d’Esquadra for the who lost an eye.
“Now he is very afraid of any noise, with a firecracker or a horn he gets scared. She was a girl with a lot of social life, she went to many demonstrations, and now she doesn’t want to and To a place where there are a lot of people. The impact for her has been brutal, she has even stopped studying. It cannot be that a person goes to a demonstration and returns without an eye”, Eric Cuesta, father of Africa, told Amnesty International.
He last December 2, the Parliament of Catalonia approved request the retreat urgent of the most harmful ammunition (the SIR-X projectile). Until now, the Generalitat has not announced whether or not it will attend this petition.
The misuse of less lethal weapons is causing devastating injuries around the world
These weapons have caused permanent disability in hundreds of cases and many deaths. There has been an alarming increase in eye injuriesincluding ruptured eyeballs, retinal detachments and total loss of vision, as well as bone and skull fractures, brain injuries, internal organ rupture and bleeding, perforation of the heart and lungs caused by rib fractures, genital damage and trauma psychological.
According to an evaluation by the National Institute of Human Rights of Chilepolice actions during the protests that began in October 2019 resulted in more than 440 eye injuriesmore than 30 cases of loss of eye the eye break.
Between 1990 and June 2017, at least 53 people were killed by projectiles fired by security forces, according to a peer-reviewed study based on medical literature. The study also concluded that 300 of the 1,984 injured people suffered permanent disability. The true number is likely to be much higher.
Since then, the availability, variety, and use of kinetic-impact projectiles has intensified around the world, fueling the militarization of police control of protests. The report reveals that national guidelines on the use of kinetic-impact projectiles are rarely in line with international standards on the use of force, which state that their use should be limited to situations of last resort when violent individuals pose an imminent threat of cause harm to other people. Police forces routinely break the law with impunity.
In April 2021, Leidy Cadena Torresthen 22 years old, was walking in the direction of a protest over tax reforms in the capital of Colombia, Bogotá, when she was hit in the face by a rubber bullet fired at close range by a riot police officer. She lost an eye.
“I didn’t understand what was happening, I took out my cell phone and took a photo, but I couldn’t see it,” he told Amnesty International.
“They try to hurt you in a visible way, like losing an eye, to scare people, so they don’t come out [a protestar].”
The experience of losing sight experienced by Leidy Cadena Torres has been repeated with alarming frequency in similar circumstances in Central and South American States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the United States during recent and current protests.
Gustavo Gatica22, a psychology student, was blinded in both eyes after being hit in the face by rubber-coated metal pellets fired by police during protests against inequality in the capital of ChileSantiago, on November 8, 2019. So far, no one has been held accountable for it.
Gustavo recently told Amnesty International: “I felt the water run from my eyes […] but it was blood”. He hopes that his injuries will inspire change, so that this doesn’t happen to other people, and he says, “I gave away my eyes so that people would wake up.”
In USA, the use of rubber bullets to suppress peaceful protests is becoming more common. A protester hit in the face in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 31, 2020, told Amnesty International: “My eye blew out from the impact of the rubber bullet and my nose moved from where it should be to under the other eye. . The first night I was in the hospital they gathered up the pieces of the eye and sewed it back together. Then they put my nose back where it should be and reconstructed it. They gave me an ocular prosthesis, so now I can only see with my right eye.”
In Francemedical examination of 21 patients with facial and eye injuries caused by rubber bullets indicated serious injuries such as bone fragmentation, fractures, and ruptures resulting in blindness.
Amnesty International has also documented tear gas grenade cases aimed and fired directly at individuals or crowds in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Gaza, Guinea, Hong Kong, Iraq, Iran, Peru, Sudan, Tunisia, and Venezuela.
In Iraksecurity forces deliberately attacked protesters with specialized grenades, which are 10 times heavier than typical tear gas munitions, causing horrific injuries and at least 24 deaths in 2019. In TunisiaHaykal Rachdi, 21, died after being hit in the head by a tear gas canister in January 2021.
In Colombiasecurity forces have used the VENOM, a 30-barrel grenade launcher—originally developed for the United States Marine Corps—to launch tear gas rounds at protesters.