The inceasingly spreading trade in torture tools is a curse, as far as Egyptian prisoners and detainees are concerned, according to a report by Amnesty International on Monday.
The human rights watchdog said in a report citing one case, Mohammed Naguib Adu-Higazi was arrested in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1997 by a State Security Investigations officer. While held at the SSI office, he was stripped of his clothes and given electro-shocks from a "cylinder-shaped stick with a spiral metal wire." He was reportedly deprived of food for three days, kept blind-folded throughout his nine-day detention, and threatened with sexual assault.
Torturers are arming themselves with increasingly sophisticated equipment, and -- according to the Amnesty International report, the trade in these devices is growing. The equipment includes high voltage electric shock stun weapons and chemical crowd control devices, while torturers continue to abuse old-style equipment such as restraint devices.
Between 1997 and March 2000, the United States approved the export to Egypt of shock batons, stun guns and optical sighting devices valued at more than $40,000, said the organization.
Amnesty International's report, "Stopping The Torture Trade,” reveals that the international trade in high voltage electro-shock batons, shields, stun guns, and stun belts has been expanding throughout the 1990s. This includes 'tasers', which can shoot 'fishhook' darts on wires into victims up to thirty feet away, and stun belts, which are strapped to prisoners and operated by remote control devices. The belts have been known to set off accidentally thrusting about 50,000 volts through the prisoners' kidneys for up to eight seconds. This technology began in the United States, and has spread to Asia, Europe and South Africa.
"In the 1970s there were only two companies known to market high voltage electro-shock stun weapons, and now there are over 150 world-wide," said Brian Wood, one of the Amnesty International researchers who worked on the report.
"In the absence of stringent controls to prevent this equipment ending up in the hands of torturers, responsible governments must ban its export immediately," he added.
In the last two years, over 150 companies operating in 22 countries have been making or marketing electro-shock weapons. Now, Taiwanese, South Korean and Chinese companies probably manufacture more electro-shock stun weapons than companies in the USA. German, French and Israeli companies are also amongst the key manufacturers, and recently Polish, Russian, Czech, Mexican, Brazilian, and South African firms have joined in. The German government does not allow the weapons to be used in German prisons or by German police on German residents, but allows German companies to market and sell them for use abroad. The South African government is now actively promoting the sale of electro-shock belts in Asia, as well as using them on prisoners at home, said the report.
"Stopping the Torture Trade," one of a series of reports to be released in Amnesty International's year-long campaign to Stop Torture, also highlights the trade by more than 40 companies in more conventional security devices that can be used for serious abuse of human rights, such as mechanical restraints and chemical sprays.
"There is a crying need for concrete changes to be made to the way governments license and monitor the manufacture, transfer and use of security equipment and know-how," demanded the organization – Albawaba.com
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