Reacting to the joint press release issued today by the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, “Ireland: Gardaí less-lethal weapon expansion poses grave human rights risks, warn UN experts”, Stephen Bowen, Executive Director, Amnesty International Ireland said:
“We welcome the two Special Rapporteurs’ intervention with the Irish Government over An Garda Síochána’s acquisition and deployment of less lethal weapons, including for crowd control and protest management.
“In October last year we voiced our concern at what was very clearly excessive use of force by Gardaí against people protesting Israel’s detention and ill-treatment of Global Sumud Flotilla activists. It is disturbing to see now that the incapacitant spray used against those protesters was likely a newly acquired ‘double-strength pepper spray’, and the experts’ noting a lack of clarity around why such increased strength is necessary or what safeguards there are for its use.
“We are further dismayed at these two experts’ expressing similar concerns about the pilot use of ‘tasers’ by Gardaí, and their possible wider roll-out without sufficient public debate. The very serious issues raised in their statement today must be heeded and urgently addressed by the Government.”