Tasers can kill

Tasers can kill. That was the underlying message of a day of meetings, interviews and speeches in Belfast organised by the local Amnesty office.

And boy, did we get our message out! Via the airwaves, newsprint and online – but mostly in person – we’ve been busy all day Monday warning of the danger attached to the Chief Constable’s proposal to give tasers to the PSNI.

The local Amnesty office was joined by AI USA colleague Dalia (pictured) from our Washington DC office, Mark (pictured) from the ACLU in San Francisco and Neil from Manchester-based arms research organisation, the Omega Research Foundation.

Together we ran from one meeting to the next all day, ensuring that Amnesty is shaping the debate on this life or death policing issue. And a result. Before the day was out, Nuala O’Loan, the widely respected Police Ombudsman, was saying publicly that she shared our concerns and hadn’t heard a convincing case for the deployment of the potentially deadly devices to Northern Ireland.

Al Hutchinson, the Police Oversight Commissioner, told me exactly the same in an aside after the main event of the day.

Small victories perhaps when the final decision is still to be taken. But victories worth counting, when the 50,000 volt devices have already been issued – or are currently being introduced – to every other police force in the UK, largely without the public debate which we have now helped to set free here.

Northern Ireland has taken huge steps forward in policing accountability and human rights adherence in recent years. It is good to think that we might even set an example to the rest of the UK and the rest of the world in rejecting these weapons because of human rights concerns. We shall see.

Meanwhile, join the debate! Why not personally tell Sir Hugh Orde, the PSNI Chief Constable and Sir Desmond Rea, the Policing Board chairman, what you think of the taser proposals. Click for action…