Tuesday 10 / September / 2024
London: The United Kingdom has halted all exports of teargas to Hong Kong after reports of police brutality emerged post the mass protests in the country in early June. The Hong Kong police allegedly used teargas and rubber bullets against protesters who were opposed to a proposed extradition law that they said would allow China to target its political enemies and try them in its courts, where the conviction rate is as high as 99 per cent. Some of the equipment used by police was sold by British firms.
Global human rights body Amnesty International has said experts upon policing and on digital verification, they found footage of 14 incidents of apparent police violence during a protest on 12 June.
“The evidence of the unlawful use of force by police against peaceful protesters on 12 June is irrefutable. In the footage Amnesty has verified, police officers appear out of control, placing peaceful protesters who posed no threat in danger of serious injury,” Man-kei Tam, the director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, said.
Britain's foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who is campaigning to be the next prime minister, said no new export licences would be approved until concerns about human rights abuses were “thoroughly addressed”. His statement appeared to leave existing export licences untouched, including open licences that are not due to expire until 2020. “I today urge the Hong Kong government to establish a robust independent investigation into the violent scenes that we saw,” he said.
