Brussels, 09/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - In a new report highlighting the loopholes in the EU's current regulation on the trade in instruments of torture which allows the advertising or even display in trade fairs of spiked batons, thumbcuffs and spiked shields, Amnesty International urges the EU, on Monday 9 May, to tighten its legislation, revision of which is bogged down in the co-decision process between the Council and the European Parliament.
The report, which was published in collaboration with the Omega Research Foundation, reveals that items already banned under the 2005 regulation on trade in instruments of torture are being advertised both on the internet and at trade fairs. For example, thumbcuffs, spiked batons, spiked shields and weighted leg restraints have all been advertised and were commercially promoted at Milipol, a fair dedicated to security, in Paris in 2015, despite the import of these products into the EU and their export to non-EU countries being prohibited, Amnesty says.
“This flagrantly undermines the spirit of the regulation which bans these very items from import and export in an effort to ensure no person or company profits from the sickening torture trade. The EU and its member states must get their shop in order and ban the advertisement of thumbcuffs, spiked batons and any other barbaric equipment which can only be used to inflict cruel and degrading punishment on other human beings”, urges Amnesty.
“Each time we have presented our findings to France, Germany and other EU States calling on them to end such practices, they have refused. It is now time for EU governments to act in good faith to fulfil their international obligations to combat torture and ill-treatment, and to ensure Europe no longer remains a market place for inhumane policing and prison equipment”, adds the Omega Research Foundation.
In October 2015, the European Parliament specifically proposed prohibiting the commercial marketing and promotion of all items banned under the torture trade regulation, both physically and online (see EUROPE 11420). This proposal was not accepted by the Council of the EU, and is currently being discussed in informal trialogue negotiations.
The report is available at http://goo.gl/cKgEgL . (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)