Chinese companies exporting torture equipment fuel human rights abuses - Amnesty International

An Amnesty International report stated that an increasing number of Chinese companies are supplying tools made for torture and fuelling human rights abuses across Africa and Asia.

More than 130 companies were involved in the manufacture and sale of devices such as restraints, electric shock batons and spiked metal batons, with such products being openly marketed.

China is the only country known to manufacture spiked batons, which Amnesty International said were "specifically designed as implements of torture".

Patrick Wilcken, security trade and human rights researcher at Amnesty International, said,

“Increasing numbers of Chinese companies are profiting from the trade in tools of torture and repression, fuelling human rights abuses across the world.”

Amnesty International’s report cites the cases of Chinese anti-riot equipment being used in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as examples of the “flourishing” global trade.

Wilcken added,

“This trade – which causes immense suffering – is flourishing because the Chinese authorities have done nothing to stop companies supplying these sickening devices for export or to prevent policing equipment falling into the hands of known human rights abusers.”

See the full report here.


 

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