Police Brutality

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Torture is not just violent interrogation for confession. And it’s not only keeping prisoners in appalling conditions. It’s also, and most likely to be, the police baton cracking the skull of the fallen protester; the indiscriminate firing of tear gas cannisters at close range into a crowd, turning a lawful tool of control into an illegal and lethal projectile; or the inherently disproportionate force of using a spiked baton against people on a peaceful march.

As authoritarianism rises globally, so do protests for democracy and human rights. Violence by riot police, security forces, and soldiers against protesters is often the most extensive application of the State’s power to torture and ill-treat its citizens. Protests are a principal fault-line where State power and citizen’s rights meet. Thus, it’s a principal fault-line for IRCT’s mission to expose torture and fight for accountability.

Photo by Federico Rios Escobar; Intervened with crayon, aquarelle and texts by Marcelo Brodsky, 2021