Amnesty International has warned that the use of rubber bullets and other projectiles against peaceful protesters has become increasingly routine worldwide, leading to eye injuries and even deaths, Persecondnews.com gathered Tuesday.
The London-based group called for better global regulation of the trade and use of such policing equipment, also called “less lethal weapons”, after a research in dozens of countries in the past five years.
“Thousands of protesters and bystanders have been maimed and dozens killed by the often reckless and disproportionate use of less lethal law enforcement weaponry,” it said in a report titled My Eye Exploded.
These included rubber bullets, rubberised buckshot and teargas grenades fired directly at demonstrators in south and Central America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the US.
“There has been an alarming increase in eye injuries, including eyeball ruptures, retinal detachments and the complete loss of sight,” Amnesty International said.
In Chile alone, the police’s response to protests from October 2019 caused more than 30 cases of eye loss, according to the country’s National Institute for Human Rights.
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