Electroshock Tool Of Choice For Torturers Amnesty International Urges Nations To Halt Export Of Devices
Stun guns and stun belts have become the torturer’s tool of choice in 50 countries in the 1990s, Amnesty International said Tuesday.
The international human rights organization called for a halt to the export of such weapons to countries that have used them for torture. It also called for an immediate suspension of their use by law enforcement officers.
Torturers prefer electroshock because it does not leave permanent marks as evidence on their victims’ bodies, the report said.
Amnesty criticizes modern high-voltage stun guns, “taser” guns that shoot darts and electroshock stun belts that inflict eight-second shocks using up to 50,000 volts.
The use of those devices as torture tools was reported in 50 countries, from Algeria to Zaire, Amnesty said.
The report cited grueling accounts from victims who were attacked on the most sensitive parts of their bodies. They said they suffered intense pain, convulsions, fainting, loss of muscle control, psychological scarring and other effects.
It quoted Mediha Curabaz, a 25-year-old Turkish nurse, as saying that in 1991 Turkish police “thrust the electric truncheon violently into my sexual organs and I felt a pain as if I was being drilled there with an electric drill.”
The report said that in China, electroshock was used on four girls younger than 16. It said two Tibetan brothers, ages 11 and 19, were tortured by having electric batons placed in their mouths.
A Cyprus government report acknowledged that the torture was regularly used in a prison in 1992; it is widely used in Saudi Arabia.
Amnesty also expressed concern about the use of remote-controlled stun belts in U.S. prisons, describing the belts as “specifically designed to be degrading.”
“This is a fast-growing industry, whose products are often not properly tested and many of whose ‘clients’ are well known to have used the products to routinely and systematically torture men, women and children,” the organization said.
“Yet many governments - including the United States - allow this trade and some, such as France, have even helped to promote it,” it said.
Stun weapons are often marketed through magazines and exhibitions.
xxxx At least 100 companies around the world have marketed electroshock weapons. The United States accounts for almost half the total number of suppliers; other sellers include Belgium, China, France, Germany, Israel, South Africa, Taiwan and the United States, according to Amnesty International.