"Torture trade" flourishes despite regulations

[struggle4progress]

Thalif Deen | United Nations

... According to the London-based Amnesty International (AI), the 27-member European Union is the world's first regional body to have adopted rules governing the trade in equipment used for torture and ill-treatment ...

.. EU companies and individuals are still able to broker deals in equipment easily used for torture outside EU territory ...

The report also lists several items -- including handcuffs used to hold prisoners in stress positions during interrogations in Guantánamo Bay, and electric batons used against Roma minorities by police in Slovakia and Bulgaria -- that are not covered by the regulations.

The European regulations relating to trade in goods that could be used for capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment -- which came into force in July last year -- are described as "the first set of regulations of its kind to be adopted anywhere in the world." ...

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=300482&area=/insight/insight__international/


AI Index: EUR 01/003/2007 (Public)
News Service No: 034
27 February 2007
Embargo Date: 27 February 2007 00:01 GMT
EU: Flawed regulations not enough to stop trade in tools of torture

... European Union: Stopping the Trade in the Tools of Torture, describes how regulations introduced in 2006, fail to provide comprehensive and robust measures to ensure that companies are not able to profit by trade in this equipment.

“The European Union is the first regional body in the world to have adopted rules governing the trade in equipment used for torture and ill-treatment. However, unless the flaws in the new regulations are addressed, the torture trade is set to continue,” said Brian Wood, Amnesty International's research manager on the arms and security trade.

Weaknesses in the regulations identified by the report show how:

* Items synonymous with torture and executions including the ‘sting stick’, a baton with 3 inch spikes, and ‘hanging ropes’ used for executions in India, Sri Lanka and Trinidad and Tobago are absent from the banned list in the regulations;

* EU companies and individuals are still able to broker deals in equipment easily used for torture outside of EU territory;

* The regulations do not cover imports or trade of such equipment between EU member states in cases where there is documented evidence of state torture and ill-treatment;

* Only 11 of the 27 EU member states have drafted national laws or implemented penalties in accordance with the regulations;

* Regulations still fail to prevent the transit of torture equipment through the EU by companies from outside the EU ...

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR010032007


AI Index: ACT 40/001/1997
4 March 1997
AI Index: ACT 40/01/97
Arming the Torturers

... Another US export commodity category (OA82C) has since 1983 included "specially designed implements for torture" with "saps, thumbcuffs, thumbscrews, leg irons, shackles, handcuffs,...straight jackets, police helmets and shields, parts and accessories". Commerce Department export licence records for 1994 under this category show, for instance, that "police helmets, handcuffs, shields used for torture" were approved for Saudi Arabia, Russia and many other countries. "Shields used for torture" may conceivably include electro-shock riot shields. In November 1995, the US Commerce Secretary notified Congress that, due to letters and inquiries from the public, he was separating "specially designed implements of torture" to a new export commodity control category with "a presumption of denial for a licence to export." ...

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGACT400011997?open&of=ENG-CYP

[libodem]

1. This hurts me.

I hate it.