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Abstract
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uring the past week, the images of peaceful protesters in the United States being shot with projectiles, sprayed with pepper spray, or teargassed by police in riot gear reminded us of the many peaceful protesters in other countries who have been severely injured from excessive use of force by the state. As physician-researchers for Physicians for Human Rights, we have investigated the health effects of the use of so-called nonlethal crowd-control weapons by security officials against demonstrators in Bahrain, India, Palestine, South Korea, Sudan, Turkey, and Hong Kong.1 We have examined people who were blinded by rubber bullets, who experienced traumatic brain injury from teargas canisters shot at close range, and who have had prolonged respiratory difficulties from teargas exposure. The settings vary, but the weapons are similar.
What is shared among the individuals we have interviewed and examined, regardless of their country and their reasons for protesting, is that their injuries were caused by excessive force. An excessive use of force in largely peaceful demonstrations fails to meet the international human rights principles of necessity, proportionality, legality, and accountability for the use of crowd-control weapons.2
During the past days, we have witnessed violations of the rights of people demonstrating against police brutality in cities throughout the United States. A student at Indiana Tech was hit in the eye by a teargas canister shot by a police officer. Police body camera footage depicted a young woman dragged out of a car while being tased by police officers in Atlanta. A tweet from Dallas showed a young girl with blood streaming down her face after being hit by a rubber bullet. A woman outside a medic tent described being shot at with rubber bullets while trying to provide medical care to an injured demonstrator in Minneapolis. On live television, a reporter was hit by a pepper ball shot by an officer. In an act of gratuitous cruelty during a pandemic, video footage showed a New York City police officer pulling down the mask of a young man whose hands are up and shooting pepper spray directly into his face.
Crowd-control weapons are not benign. Rubber bullets, a general term for kinetic impact projectiles that includes bean bag rounds, sponge rounds, and other projectiles, are made of hard plastic or rubber, mixtures of metal and foam, or shards of metal inside rubber. They often lead to serious injuries, particularly when they hit the head, eyes, or neck. Rubber bullets have resulted in many deaths worldwide.3,4 Their projectile force is equivalent to that of a bullet, so if fired at close range, they hit people with the same impact as live ammunition. Once fired, these bullets have an unpredictable trajectory, so they may hit individuals' faces and necks even if not aimed there...
Language: en |