Showing posts with label police brutality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police brutality. Show all posts
Monday, March 07, 2022
Thousands Arrested across Russia at Anti-war Protests
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Moments earlier she had been struck countless times in the head and body with metal batons, not content with the brutal beating delivered by his fellow soldier, one man stamped on her head repeatedly.
She feebly tried to shield her head from the relentless blows with her hands.
But she was knocked unconscious in the shameful attack and left lying motionless as the military men mindlessly continued to beat her limp and half-naked body.
Before she was set upon by the guards, three men appeared to carry her as they tried to flee the approaching military.
But they were too slow and the soldiers caught up with them, capturing the women and knocking one of the men to the ground.
The two other men were forced to abandoned their fellow protestors and continued running, looking helplessly back at the two they left behind being relentlessly attacked as they lay on the ground.
This is just one of the hundreds of shameful injustices seen in Cairo's Tahrir Square where Egypt's military took a dramatically heavy hand on Saturday to crush protests against its rule.
Aya Emad told the AP that troops dragged her by her headscarf and hair into the Cabinet headquarters. The 24-year-old said soldiers kicked her on the ground, an officer shocked her with an electrical prod and another slapped her on the face, leaving her nose broken and her arm in a sling. » | Inderdeep Bains | Sunday, December 18, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Police in Dubai have ordered a second post mortem into the death in custody of a British man whose relatives say he was beaten to death.
Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Bin Tamim, head of Dubai Police, said police doctors were examining the body of Lee Bradley Brown, 39, who was on holiday at the Burj al-Arab Hotel in the city when he was arrested for threatening a Nepalese housekeeper.
The Dubai authorities repeated denials that Mr Brown had been "tortured". A previous post mortem, conducted by the prosecutor's department, said he had choked on his own vomit, and that there were traces of cannabis in his system.
Lt Gen Khalfan said: "We do not doubt the first report but we just want to confirm it. Two doctors started examining the body on Saturday and we will reveal the results soon. » | Richard Spencer, Dubai | Sunday, April 17, 2011
Related »
Sunday, April 17, 2011
THE OBSERVER: Four British prisoners 'traumatised' in Dubai police station where it is claimed Lee Bradley Brown was beaten to deathForeign Office officials were attempting last night to move four British prisoners out of a notorious Dubai police station in the wake of claims that a British tourist was beaten to death there.
Discussions continue with the Dubai authorities about moving the prisoners to another jail. They are said to be traumatised after allegations that Lee Bradley Brown died after being beaten up by up to six police officers and dragged from his cell in the Bur Dubai station.
British embassy staff visited the police station yesterday to reinterview the British inmates. There are fears that they may be at risk of reprisals following reports that they blew the whistle on the alleged beating.
Negotiations are focusing on a possible transfer to the new Dubai Central Prison, in the middle of al-Aweer desert, which is the emirate's largest jail with room for 4,000 inmates.
Radha Stirling, of the Detained In Dubai charity, said talks were continuing about moving the Britons to a "safer place" while a Foreign Office spokesman confirmed they had "made a number of requests" to the Dubai authorities. Among them is the need for a "fair and proper" investigation into the death of Brown, 39, from Ilford, Essex. Dubai police maintain Brown's body had no signs of bruising or evidence of assault when he died last Monday. They claim he suffocated on his vomit in his cell. » | Mark Townsend | Sunday, April 17, 2011
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THE OBSERVER – EDITORIAL: To have different levels of tolerance for different despots raises awkward questions
One obvious lesson for the west from recent upheaval in the Middle East is that propping up authoritarian regimes on the grounds that they make stable allies is a terrible policy.
The stability procured by despotism is an illusion. Brittle police states can contain, but never satisfy, a captive people's appetite for better lives. Eventually, they shatter and the more rigid the apparatus of repression, the more explosive the change when it comes.
That has been demonstrated clearly enough in North Africa and yet the west struggles to apply the lesson to the Arabian Peninsula. The contagious spirit of democratic springtime that provoked protests in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya also reached Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia. But there the west has been markedly less inclined to cheer it on.
The Observer carries the chilling testimony of a young Bahraini caught up in the small Gulf kingdom's brutal crackdown on civil dissent. It is a story that struggles to be heard as foreign media are increasingly denied access to the country and the local press is muzzled.
As many as 30 people are thought to have been killed as anti-government demonstrations have been violently suppressed. Hundreds of protesters have been detained and employees have been dismissed from state-owned enterprises in a move to purge dissent.
As our report makes clear, the unrest is increasingly sectarian in character. The Khalifa royal family and ruling elite are Sunni, while the majority of the population is Shia. That religious, cultural and economic division was politicised before the current crackdown, with the main parliamentary opposition coming from Shia parties. The government has flirted with a plan to ban those groups on the grounds of "disrespect for constitutional institutions". There has been widespread intimidation and abuse of Shia communities, carried out in part by security forces "invited" from neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
It would be unfair to say that the violence carried out by Bahraini authorities has passed entirely without comment from the UK. There have been pained expressions of discomfort and urgings of restraint on all sides.
Elsewhere in the region, those noises were precursors to more robust language. But in the Gulf there is a subtle difference of tone. In a statement to Parliament, William Hague, foreign secretary, was keen to recognise "important political reforms" which he welcomed in the context of "the long friendship between Bahrain and the UK". » | Editorial | Sunday, April 17, 2011
THE OBSERVER: Mahmoud, a Shia who lives near Bahrain's capital tells how Saudi soldiers wage a campaign of sectarian violenceSince the Gulf soldiers came to Bahrain, life in the Shia villages and suburbs of the capital, Manama, has been non-stop intimidation, violence and threats. Even trying to move around in normal ways has become life-threatening. They are trying to beat down the opposition with a long campaign against us.
I live in one of the villages near Manama. One night about 7.30pm, I parked in front of my father-in-law's house and walked towards the door, when at least 50 armed and masked thugs – they were not in security forces uniform – appeared from one of the village lanes and told me to stop, pointing their shotguns at me. I ran away and they followed, but I managed to hide in one of the houses and they did not see me.
I heard them talking to each other, saying: "Don't worry, we will find him." I was taking a look from the window and they stayed at the car park opposite the house I was hiding in, and they were smashing the windows of parked cars and wrecking and stealing from them. Some had Saudi accents; they are very different from Bahraini and easy to tell.
At 8pm most nights people go up on their roofs and chant Allahu Akbar ["God is greatest"] and the thugs start shooting randomly in the air and at the top of the roofs. That night the area was covered with tear-gas grenades and rubber bullets, while the roads around the house were deserted except for thugs. » | 'Mahmoud' | Saturday, April 16, 2011
THE OBSERVER: Arrests and troop movements signal another government crackdown on protests in the tiny Gulf stateBahrain is braced for a fresh bout of violent repression as new arrests and the alleged death of a female student fuel sectarian tensions in the tiny Gulf state.
Armoured vehicles and security forces were reported to be gathering in the streets of the capital, Manama, and in surrounding suburbs and villages.
Meanwhile, evidence has emerged that Saudi forces have been involved in violence against the opposition in the mainly Shia villages and suburbs around Manama. In a graphic eyewitness account of the repression given to the Observer, a Bahraini who has been caught up in the violence claimed that officers with Saudi accents, in plainclothes but armed with automatic weapons, had led attacks on members of the Shia opposition on several occasions over the past month.
When Saudi and UAE troops from the Gulf Peninsula Shield force entered the kingdom at the request of the government last month, it was said that they were there to guard strategic buildings and infrastructure.
Reports from the city said that a young woman – beaten up last month by government supporters at Bahrain University – had died. A family member confirmed her death but the circumstances remained unclear. Arrests of lawyers and doctors working for the opposition continued. » | Foreign staff | Saturday, April 16, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
BBC: A British tourist died in police custody in Dubai after choking on his own vomit, officials have said.
Lee Brown, 39, of east London, was held at the luxury Burj Al Arab hotel after being accused of physically and verbally abusing a female staff member.
The UK has called for an inquiry amid reports he was assaulted by officers.
But the claim was denied by an unnamed police official quoted by local media and Dubai's attorney general said the force followed the "highest standards".
Dubai attorney general Issam Al Humaidan said a post-mortem examination concluded Mr Brown's death was caused by suffocation after vomit leaked into his respiratory tract.
In a statement he expressed condolences to Mr Brown's family and said that police in the Gulf emirate dealt with prisoners with respect and were "governed by the highest standards to preserve human rights". » | Thursday, April 14, 2011
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MAIL ONLINE: 'The guards tried to hush it up and pretend nothing had happened’A British tourist was beaten to death by officers in a Dubai police station after being arrested for swearing, it was claimed yesterday.
Lee Bradley Brown, 39, was on holiday at a £1,000-a-night hotel in the Arab state when he was thrown into a filthy cell.
Police sources say he was ‘badly beaten up’ by a group of police officers, leaving him unconscious on the floor.
Inmates told how they watched officers bundle him into a body-bag and drag him out of the building.
During Mr Brown’s six days in Bur Dubai police station, guards refused to give him enough food and water and did not let him see a lawyer, it is alleged.
His sister learned about the attack when she received a phone call from an inmate on Sunday, claiming her brother had been beaten.
The prisoner found her phone number on a photocopy of her brother’s passport which had been left behind in the cell.
She contacted the British Embassy in Dubai, and on Monday an official was sent to visit Mr Brown at the police station.
But the official was turned away by an officer who claimed Mr Brown did not want to see him and had ‘declined consular assistance’. » | Arthur Martin, Nick McDermott and and Rebecca Evans | Thursday, April 14, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
BBC: Security forces in Bahrain have arrested and beaten one of the country's leading human rights activists, his daughter says.The activist, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, was seized in the middle of the night and taken away with his two sons-in-law.
It is the latest in a series of violent night-time arrests of opposition activists, say human rights workers.
The Bahraini government accuses them of inciting unrest and trying to divide the Sunni and Shia Muslim communities.
Mr al-Khawaja's daughter says in the very early hours of Saturday morning up to 20 armed and masked policemen broke down the door of their apartment and began attacking her father.
Maryam al-Khawaja says he offered no resistance but that the men beat him unconscious and dragged him downstairs, leaving a trail of blood.
She said the family have no idea where he has been taken, what he is accused of, or how long he will be held. » | Frank Gardner, BBC security correspondent, Bahrain | Saturday, April 09, 2011
BBC: Police brutality turns Bahrain into 'island of fear': The BBC has obtained images of alleged police brutality against peaceful protesters in the Bahraini capital Manama, where fears of a systematic crackdown on pro-democracy activists are growing. » | Bill Law, Crossing Continents, BBC News | Thursday, April 07, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Bahrain’s police rounded up opposition leaders at gunpoint and took over a major hospital as it continued a violent crackdown on a protest movement despite international calls for restraint.
Security forces again clashed with Shia demonstrators as the Sunni monarchy sought to quell the month-long protest movement, which is calling for constitutional reform. The Bahraini capital Manama was tense but calm as troops in armoured vehicles funnelled traffic into checkpoints at key bridges and junctions.
Security forces took control of Salmaniya medical centre, Manama’s main hospital. Doctors and opposition figures alleged that wounded Shia protesters were denied treatment and staff were harassed.
Seven opposition figures were rounded up in raids including Hassan Mushaima, the leading Shia dissident, who had recently returned from exile in London.
They have been accused of contacting foreign states and inciting murder and vandalism, according to a statement from the island state’s military officials. » | Ben Farmer, Manama | Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
THE VANCOUVER SUN: At least 200 people were shot and wounded on Tuesday in a Shiite village south of the Bahraini capital, a medic said, as the king imposed a state of emergency after bringing in Saudi and Emirati troops to help quell anti-regime protests.As violence escalated, close ally the United States warned that there was "no military solution" to political upheaval in Bahrain and that any violence against peacefully expressed political demands "should be stopped." U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Bahrainis must "take steps now" toward a political resolution of the crisis.
"More than 200 people we received today had been shot with buckshot," a hospital medic in the village of Sitra, south of the capital, said by telephone. The medic, who asked not to be identified, said the hospital was under siege by armed gangs and security forces targeting Shiites -the backbone of anti-regime protests that have raged for a month. The medic said villagers "confronted the gangs when they arrived in the village," only to discover that they were carrying guns.
Helicopters were hovering over the area, the medic said, adding that the total number of injured people rises to more than 400 when those admitted for inhaling tear gas are included.
Neighbouring Iran condemned Monday's intervention by Saudi-led Gulf country troops to help put down the protests, prompting Manama to recall its ambassador. » | REUTERS | Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Thursday, April 15, 2010
YAHOO! NEWS: Footage of police beating an innocent basketball fan unconscious as he was celebrating a win by his college team has sent shockwaves through America.
University of Maryland student John McKenna was attacked after their victory over arch rivals Duke.
CCTV pictures show him skipping down the street waving his arms in joy.
He is then approached by police on horseback who stand over him before other cops in riot gear swoop and start hitting him with their batons.
Police initially claimed Mr McKenna had attacked their officers and horses, causing them "minor injuries", as they responded to reports of trouble after the game.
But the footage clearly shows he never struck out - and even tried to back away when confronted.
The FBI is now investigating the incident which left the 21-year-old needing eight staples to repair a head wound.
He was also allegedly told by officers in Maryland not to make a fuss about his injuries because they would have to fill out more paperwork. Read on (with video) >>> Sky News | Thursday, April 15, 2010
Monday, July 13, 2009
THE GUARDIAN: Victims tell of arrests, threats and beatings / Two women among five killed by officers
They came in the small hours, just as the dormitories were settling down for the night. Outside, Tehran was still in ferment, a city gripped by fury two days after a "stolen election". Inside the dorms on Amirabad Street, students were trying to sleep, though nerves were jangling; just hours earlier several had been beaten in front of the main gate to the university.
What happened next developed into one of the seminal events of Iran's post-election unrest: police broke locks and then bones as they rampaged through the dormitories, attacked dozens of students, carted off more than 100 and killed five. The authorities still deny the incursion took place. But the account pieced together from interviews with five of those present tells a different story.
"We were getting ready to go to sleep when we suddenly heard them breaking the locks to enter our rooms," said one of the 133 students arrested that night. "I'd seen them earlier beating students but I didn't imagine that they would come inside. It's even against Iranian law."
Forty-six students from one dorm were arrested and taken to the basement of the interior ministry on nearby Fatemi Street. It was there, on the building's upper floors, that the vote-counting and – claim opposition supporters – the rigging, was going on. Another 87 were taken to a security police building on Hafez Street. Students spoke of torture and mistreatment.
Five died: they were Fatemeh Barati, Kasra Sharafi, Mobina Ehterami, Kambiz Shoaee and Mohsen Imani – buried the following day in Tehran's famous Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery, reportedly without their families being informed. Their names were confirmed by Tahkim Vahdat, a student organisation.
Witnesses said the two women and three men were repeatedly beaten on the head with electric batons. Their families were warned not to talk about their children or hold funerals – like the parents of Neda Soltan, whose face became synonymous with the protest movement after she was filmed being shot dead in the street. >>> Saeed Kamali Dehghan | Sunday, July 12, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
YOU TUBE: Iranian Snipers Taking Out Protesters
YOU TUBE: Police Brutality in Iran
Hat tip: JihadWatch >>>
THE TELEGRAPH: Violence Flares Again on the Streets of Tehran
Violence has flared on the streets of Tehran after the wife of defeated Iranian presidential candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, called on Iranians to defend their right to protest.
Demonstrators and riot police clashed in the streets around Iran's parliament as hundreds of people converged in defiance of government orders to end their demands for new presidential election.
A video posted on YouTube showed a crowd of several hundred stone-throwing demonstrators confronting a police barricade. Security forces appeared to vastly outnumber the demonstrators and beat back crowds with batons and tear gas canisters and fired rounds of ammunition into the air.
One video showed men and women throwing rocks and pushing barricades in the street. Others shouted: "Death to the dictator."
Reports on the social networking site, Twitter, said there was deliberate brutality as police dispersed the crowd. "Just in from Baharestan Sq – situation today is terrible – they beat the ppls like animals," said one entry. Another added: "In Baharestan we saw militia with axe chopping ppl like meat – blood everywhere – like butcher."
In a sign that the authorities were increasingly targeting Mr Mousavi's inner circle, 25 staff at one of his newspapers were put under arrest. The newspaper Kalemeh Sabz (Green Word) was shut down by the authorities in the wake of the disputed election that returned Mr Ahmadinejad to power.
It came as Mr Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, a prominent professor, demanded the immediate release of people detained since the election and criticised the presence of armed forces in the streets. "It is my duty to continue legal protests to preserve Iranian rights," she declared on the campaign website.
The regime issued a series of statements reiterating its unbending resolve in the face of popular defiance. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared the disputed election result would stand and Iran would resist foreign interference. "On the current situation, I was insisting and will insist on implementation of the law. That means, we will not go one step beyond the law," he said. "Neither the system nor the people will yield to pressure at any price. >>> Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent | Wednesday, June 24, 2009
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