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	Concern expressed over use of Tasers by Toronto Star / ABC News / Inter Press Service   February 7, 2008   ‘Why Talk when you can Shock,’ by Robyn Doolittle. (The Toronto Star)   Toronto — Tasers are not a replacement for guns; they’re a replacement for talking, said author Naomi Klein at a town-hall meeting last night.   “If it happened in a cell, we would call it torture and if it happens on the street we should not be afraid to call it torture,” said Klein, who is the author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.   The discussion on the police use of shock and stun guns was held at the University of Toronto in response to Toronto police Chief Bill Blair’s request that 3,000 officers be armed with electroshock guns.   When RCMP officers used a Taser on Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski in Vancouver International Airport last October, they did so within 25 seconds of their arrival on the scene, Klein said. Dziekanski died shortly after.   “Why talk when you can shock?” she said. “Tasers are not a replacement for guns. They’re a replacement for everything else …they’re a replacement for talking; for negotiating.”   As many as 20 people in Canada and 290 in the United States have died after being shocked by a Taser, said the chair of Toronto’s Amnesty International chapter, Andy Buxton, who also sat on the panel.   Taser International has said the weapon it manufactures is safe. But during clinical trials, people who are zapped are in a calm, healthy state.   “That’s not how it is in real life,” Buxton said. Of the 310 people in North American who died after being shocked with a Taser, people were often intoxicated or high on some kind of drug, such as cocaine. The majority had been in an altercation with police, had had force used on them and many were tied up in some way.   “Something in that whole witches’ brew all together (is unsafe) and we don’t know what,” Buxton said. “And until all the facts are on the table, (Amnesty International) is asking police in Canada and the United States to put a moratorium on the use of Tasers until we know whether or not they’re safe,” he said.   Buxton also cited statistics that show officers can become addicted to using Tasers. He used the example of the Edmonton police force, where Taser use increased from an average of once a week to once a day.   Nov 16, 2007   Canadian taser death sparks calls for police review, by Simon Santow. (ABC News)   A Polish man who had just arrived at Vancouver Airport died when Canadian police tasered him into submission. Tasers, or stun guns, are meant to be a substitute for lethal force.   A Polish man who had just arrived at Vancouver Airport died when Canadian police tasered him into submission. Two bursts of 50,000 volts into the man were enough to kill him. Robert Dziekanski had not been drinking and was not under the influence of drugs.   But the 40-year-old from Poland was behaving erratically soon after arriving in Canada on his first ever flight from Europe.   Paul Pritchard used his video camera to film inside the terminal building in Vancouver. "I was just filming for the sake of an entertainment standpoint," he said. "Once they tasered him, you hear this bloodcurdling scream. I still think about it.   "All of a sudden, the mood in the whole airport, everybody is watching it, it definitely changed. You see him hit the floor and you see him on the ground shaking and screaming and it''''s brutal."   Several officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police used their stun guns on Mr Dziekanski.   "He was never threatening, I mean, I never felt danger from him," Mr Pritchard said. "There was no threatening gestures or anything toward us. There''''s a woman that goes right up to him at one point, five feet away, and tries to calm him down. "I mean, he was acting irrationally but in my opinion he was acting scared."   October 26, 2007   ‘Non-Lethal Weapons’ to tackle protests against Globalization. (IPS)   Several European governments are arming their police forces with a new range of “non-lethal weapons” to put down protests against globalization, and among immigrants.   Governments in France, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, and several other countries have ordered such weapons, or are about to, even though human rights groups are warning that the supposed “non-lethality” of the guns is a myth, and that they actually can kill people.   The most widespread “non-lethal weapon” is the stun gun Taser, that discharges electric shocks. Technically that should only paralyze the person shot at, and cause intense pain.   But in a report released Sep. 27, the human rights groups Amnesty International (AI) affirms that the stun gun might have caused “more than 290 deaths of individuals in the USA and Canada struck by police Tasers” between June 2001 and Sep. 30 this year.   “While (AI) does not reach conclusions regarding the role of the Taser in each case, it believes the deaths underscore the need for thorough, independent inquiries into their use and effects,” the report says.   The number of deaths caused by Taser stun weapons might actually be higher than claimed by Amnesty International.   Former German police officials publicly praise use of Taser stun guns against demonstrators as harmless yet efficient. So far in Germany, only special police commandos are equipped with such guns.   Friedhelm Krueger-Sprengel, former official at the ministry of defense, says “the non-lethal weapons give police and army forces wider latitude in action.”   Krueger-Sprengel told IPS that “security forces can act against a rebellious population without pulling the weapons immediately. With the Taser guns for instance, police and army officers can impose themselves more easily, in the sense that their power has a larger spectrum, so that rebellious people cannot react against them.”   Rainer Wendt, director at the German Police Officers Union, says “the police need weapons that do not kill, but which hurt and cause wounds, in order to control demonstrations. Otherwise, we are declaring open season on our police officers in battles against violent demonstrators.”   A rationale for non-lethal weapons was presented by Kay Nehm, former German attorney general, in July 2006 at a conference on ‘Future Security’ in Karlsruhe city, some 550 km southwest of Berlin.   “The necessary assessment (on home security) begins with the changing social underlying circumstances, namely the economic upheavals associated with globalization, and the smaller financial possibilities of governments and municipalities to meet the growing prosperity discrepancies between the have and have-nots in our society,” Nehm said at that conference.   According to Nehm, these social and economic upheavals, which others associate with imposition of neo-liberal economic policies, “will surely lead to more social sacrifices and difficulties, which represent new risks of fractures within society, and are the natural hotbed for radical, extremist, terrorist challenges.”   Such challenges can only be mastered by security forces with non-lethal weapons, which do not cause a blood bath at demonstrations, Nehm said.   Thomas Gebauer, of the German non-governmental organization Medico International, interprets these justifications for non-lethal weapons as a symbol of the growing repressive character of European and North American governments, and of their readiness to violently suppress protests against the spreading social injustice.   “The development of such weapons aims at securing the growing social inequality, at ensuring that the poor do not have a chance of showing their discontent against the rich,” Gebauer told IPS. “The aim of these weapons is to guarantee social borders, to install perennial control of movements, to restrict democracy.”   In France, a Chinese immigrant woman was seriously wounded Sep. 1 after police agents shot at her with Taser pistols. The police officers tried to question the woman, an irregular kitchen worker at a Japanese restaurant in Paris. As she resisted identification, they first shot at her with their stun weapons.   According to the official version, the woman did not react to the electric from the stun gun, and tried to attack the police officers, who then pulled their standard guns and shot her. About 3,000 French police officers are equipped with Taser stun guns. But following the rebellion of immigrant youth during the autumn of 2005 in the suburbs of Paris, municipal authorities have been demanding authorization from the central government to equip more of the police with such non-lethal weapons.   On Oct. 16, the ministry of the interior in Paris announced that it will amend regulations to allow local community police to be equipped with stun guns.   In Switzerland, the National Council (the national parliament) voted in early October to equip immigration police forces with the Taser stun gun for use against irregular immigrants who may resist deportation.   Some of the police themselves have resisted the move. Roger Schneeberger, general secretary of the Swiss Cantonal Police Directors, said at a press conference Oct. 3 that “it suffices to use handcuffs and chains during deportation of immigrants.”   Other non-lethal weapons being discussed in Europe are laser pistols that cause temporary blindness, bean bags, which are small bags shot from barrels containing up to 150 small shots, gases, sticky foams, heat emitting screens, and high-tone sirens audible only to people under a certain age.
	More international cooperation crucial, say UN judges investigating atrocities by United Nations News   October 2007   Senior officials from the United Nations courts set up to try those responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the atrocities committed during the Balkan wars today appealed for bolstered cooperation from Member States to apprehend perpetrators of these horrendous crimes and bring them to justice.   The Presidents of both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) expressed frustration that several fugitives are still at large, as they presented the reports of their respective bodies to the General Assembly.   Although two of six longstanding fugitives of the ICTY have been apprehended in the 12-month period from 1 August 2006 to 31 July this year, several key fugitives – Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadžic – have yet to be arrested.   “We do not believe that nobody knows where these fugitives are and consider the continued failure to effect their arrest… to be an affront to justice and the rule of law over impunity,” said ICTY President Fausto Pocar.   “Indeed, that failure stands in contradiction to the very principles that were proclaimed by the international community and upon which the establishment of the International Tribunal was based,” he added.   ICTR President Dennis Byron also urged the assistance of the international community to secure the arrests of the 15 accused still at large.   “The nations represented today must recognize the risks posed to achieving international justice if they remain fugitives,” he declared.   Both judges also underscored the problem in retaining their respective staffs, calling for support for retention policies.   The Hague-based ICTY, Judge Pocar noted, is “operating at unprecedented speed with seven trials running simultaneously in its three court rooms,” and its “efficiency results directly from the commitment and dedication of the individuals who carry out its activities.”   However, given that working at the ICTY is “not without its pressures,” he said there are problems in retaining staff. In anticipation of its work wrapping up in 2010, “talented members of the staff are leaving the International Tribunal for more attractive employment in other institutions dedicated to the cause of international justice, including on offers from other UN bodies.”   At the ICTR, based in Arusha, Tanzania, “staff departures are on the rise” and the vacancy rate – reaching 20 per cent for professional staff and above as of the end of this September – is also increasing, Judge Byron said.   The situation is being exacerbated by the impending close of the Tribunal as staff seek more stable jobs, and “unless something is done to slow down this trend there is the likelihood that this could negatively impact on the completion strategy,” he stated.   Under the completion strategy that the tribunals reached with the Security Council, they are aiming to complete all trials at first instance by the end of next year and all appeals by the end of 2010.
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