A prominent international human rights watchdog urges the United States to put an end to the unlawful police violence toward Black Lives Matter protesters and calls for systemic changes to the country's policing, according to a press release issued on Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd June, 2020) A prominent international human rights watchdog urges the United States to put an end to the unlawful police violence toward Black Lives Matter protesters and calls for systemic changes to the country's policing, according to a press release issued on Tuesday.
The appeal came as Amnesty International launched an interactive map of incidents of police violence and a new campaign calling for police reform.
"The time for applying band-aids and making excuses for a few 'bad apples' has passed. What's needed now is systemic, root-and-branch reform of US policing that brings an end to the scourge of police use of excessive force and extrajudicial executions of Black people. Communities should not live in fear of being harmed by the very officers that have sworn an oath to protect them. Officers responsible for excessive force and unlawful killings must always be held accountable," Brian Castner, Senior Crisis Advisor on Arms and Military Operations at Amnesty International, said in the press release.
According to the press release, the rights group has documented 125 separate incidents of police violence against protesters in 40 US states and the District of Columbia between May 26 and June 5, when hundreds of thousands of people in the US and across the world protested against racism and police violence.
"This unlawful use of force included beatings, misuse of tear gas and pepper spray, and the inappropriate firing of less-lethal projectiles, such as sponge rounds and rubber bullets. Those abuses were committed by a range of security forces from state and local police departments, Federal agencies, and the National Guard," the watchdog said.
A wave of protests against police brutality, social injustice and racism in the US and a number of other countries across the world broke out after George Floyd, an African American man, died in the custody of US Minneapolis police on May 25.
