External resources relating to Repression of protest
Colombia is bracing for further unrest after a weekend in which largely peaceful nationwide demonstrations were met with a violent police reaction which left at least 16 demonstrators and one police officer dead and hundreds injured.... The demonstrations began with a general strike last Wednesday over an unpopular tax reform but quickly escalated when protesters were met by riot police armed with teargas, bean-bag rounds and billy clubs.
Three people have been critically injured after security forces fired live rounds at anti-coup protesters in north-western Myanmar, medics said, as south-east Asian powers met to pressure the junta over its deadly crackdown.
...The Myanmar military’s ‘True News Information Unit’ said in a statement that security forces only deployed non-lethal weapons. However, images show a member of the police (pictured above) wielding a Myanmar-made BA-94 or BA-93 Uzi clone, a Myanmar-made variant of this sub-machine gun.
US law enforcement officers used British anti-riot gear to strike protesters during their controversial policing of Black Lives Matter demonstrations, despite assurances from the Conservative government that no UK-made equipment was used to repress peaceful protest.
The British products were apparently fired at crowds in Athens who were protesting against a controversial new law introduced by the Greek government which restricts the right to demonstrate.
Campaign Against Arms Trade and Amnesty International say the use of tear gas is an “indiscriminate weapon” which should have no place in policing. Both groups have called for an investigation and for the UK government to stop exporting the product to Greece. In reply, the UK government said it takes its export responsibilities “seriously”.
They include incidents of police violence against civilians, men and women, posing no apparent threat, as well as against journalists.
While calls to defund the RCMP in the wake of widespread protests against police brutality have left some people incredulous, it’s worth considering a comparatively recent historical precedent.
After the murder of two Somali men by members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment in 1993, the federal government disbanded the unit. A public inquiry revealed widespread racism, brutal hazing rituals and a concerted effort to cover it all up. Defence officials argued a familiar line – a few bad apples – but it was hard to believe when weighed against the damning video and photographic evidence. Rex Murphy summarized it neatly when he said, “We promised them peacekeepers, and, in some cases, we sent them thugs.” Indeed, some of our supposedly elite soldiers were ill-tempered sadists, the unit a dumping ground for discipline cases and white supremacists. Public support for the military plummeted: What kind of Canadian soldiers keep a Confederate flag in their barracks?
More than 100 protesters, mainly Native Americans, blocked off a road leading to Mount Rushmore on Friday ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's arrival for an Independence Day celebration event. At least 15 protesters were arrested.
The US is still in the grip of violent confrontations between police and protesters after the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man who died in Minneapolis on 25 May after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes... Since 1997, the US Department of Defense has transferred more than $7.2bn in military equipment to law enforcement agencies.
Joe Lewis was just 18 when he was shot twice by the Ohio National Guard on his college campus. A freshman at Kent State University in Ohio, Lewis had saved money working at the post office during high school to pay for his first year of college. He loved the freedom college afforded, and in 1970, the campus was abuzz with the "excitement of being on the cusp of a new world," he said. Lewis grew up on images of the civil rights protests and the Vietnam War and took part in anti-war protests when he got to the campus.
In the months before the world went into lockdown to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, the people of Chile were rising up in their thousands to demand an end to neoliberal polices that have created a society rife with inequality. On the streets, protesters were met with gunfire, tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets. Behind the closed doors of interrogation cells, they were met with torture, rape and sexual violence.
A group of UN experts* urged the Philippines government not to discriminate against indigenous peoples in favour of business interests and when enforcing anti-COVID19 measures. On 6 April, around 100 police forcibly dispersed some 30 indigenous and environment defenders who were blocking three fuel tankers from entering Oceanagold Didipio mining site in Nueva Vizcaya province.
In early February, mourners came together to remember the life of 37-year-old Jorge Mora – a man whose life ended on 28 January, hours after a police truck slammed into him outside a football stadium... protestors and mourners were soon fleeing stinging tear gas fired off by riot police who showed little care for where and who they aimed at.
Clashes have broken out on the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios, where residents tried to prevent the arrival of riot police and excavating machines to be used to build new migrant detention camps. Police fired teargas to disperse the crowds that gathered early on Tuesday to try to prevent officers from disembarking from government-chartered ferries.
On Lesbos, protesters set fire to bins and used municipal rubbish trucks to try to block the port area. Police on Chios also used teargas and flash grenades. At least three people were treated in hospital for breathing difficulties caused by the extensive use of teargas, local officials said.
Shahid Hussein, a graduate student in history at Aligarh Muslim University, opened the door. The first blow hit him on the left shoulder. The police kept hitting him as they dragged him toward a tree outside, he said. There, two officers held his arms behind his back around the trunk, while others beat his legs with a wooden stick.
The first sound was a snowmobile, somewhere in the distance. Then, with no warning, a dozen RCMP vehicles, including prisoner vans and RCMP-branded Suburbans, roared out of the pre-dawn darkness and stopped just short of the watch camp where Wet’suwet’en land defenders have been resisting a court-ordered evacuation of their northern B.C. lands. Backed up by tactical officers, dog teams, and drones with infrared sensors, dozens of RCMP officers began raiding Wet’suwet’en land defender camps shortly before 5 a.m.
At least 19 people have died in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in recent weeks amid violent protests over a controversial new citizenship law.
The police are accused of using excessive force, and Muslims say they fear losing their rights in the world's largest democracy.
Students in Delhi have condemned their “barbaric” treatment at the hands of police who stormed a peaceful protest against the new citizenship bill over the weekend, injuring dozens.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, students who were caught up in Sunday’s protest at Delhi’s predominately Muslim Jamia Millia Islamia University – which turned violent after police descended on the campus firing teargas and rubber bullets and beating demonstrators with batons – said it had turned into a “battlefield”.
As the showdown between police and protesters in Hong Kong has intensified, officers have used increasing force, deploying an arsenal of crowd-control measures and weapons, including tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, sponge grenades and bean bag rounds.
It was, at first sight, just an ordinary rush hour scene at Birmingham’s New Street station. Three cops from the British Transport Police ordering flat whites in a cafe, amid a short break on what must have been a busy shift. One was armed with a pistol and kevlared-up, the others were wearing stab vests and bulky tactical clothing. All were equipped with earpieces, tasers, pepper sprays - and all were tense, scanning the busy street intently as they waited for their drinks.
Standards and specifications of arms and ammunitions commonly used by the police during protest dispersal operations state they can cause serious injuries or death when fired at close range or improperly.
Rubber bullets, bean bag rounds and tear gas rounds that are categorised as “low-risk” could also be lethal if fired at people’s heads. At least four reporters have been hit in the head with police projectiles since protests began in June.
“I just wanted to remind them [the police] that we are here with peaceful purposes and without weapons, but they are not,” the high school graduate told the Riga-based Meduza website.
“It never even occurred to me that someone other than them would hear it … I sat on the ground and began to read out our constitutional rights, specifying that what is happening here [police arresting protestors] is illegal.”
Police fired several rounds of teargas at protesters in residential areas of Hong Kong in the third day of mass protests as political unrest in Hong Kong deepens.
Groups of protesters attending an anti-government rally on Sunday defied police orders and fanned out from the sanctioned area in central Hong Kong, streaming west and east, occupying roads and setting up barricades, prompting major roads and shops to close.