Torture in Protest

ESMAD riot police during the National Strike in Colombia in 2021. Police used so-called less lethal weapons like rubber bullets wounding and causing widespread permanent eye injuries. Credit: Alexander Canas Arango

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.

Credit: Photo by Anadolu Agency/Getty; Intervened with crayon, aquarelle and texts by Marcelo Brodsky, 2021

With the continued rise of authoritarianism and subsequent pro-democracy protests, countering torture by police during protest remains a key component of IRCT’s work.

To that end, our Protest Toolkit was updated to simplify parts of the Reporting Form and to include a new section documenting police or military equipment used against protesters, authored by our UATC partners Omega Research Foundation, who are global experts on the use and trade in such equipment.

Torture and ill-treatment by law enforcement during protests – often to punish, intimidate, or discriminate – remain a pervasive and growing problem. Yet, such brutality is rarely recognised by officials or the public as violations of the right to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. This lack of recognition undermines accountability, prevents adoption of safeguards, and allows impunity.

UATC’s policy paper Protesting Without Fear: A Policy Framework to End Torture and Ill-Treatment in Protests offers legally grounded, practical recommendations for States, applying the international anti-torture framework as a powerful but underused tool for prevention, protection, and redress.

UATC Policy framework to end torture and ill-treatment in Protests

Protests are where State and citizens meet. Too often – in dictatorships and democracies – they end in police brutality that can amount to torture and other ill-treatment.

The Toolkit is intended for use by protesters, activists and civil society organisations. It has been developed by leading forensic experts at the IRCT, the Independent Forensic Expert Group (IFEG), the Human Rights Centre at the University of California, Berkeley, the School of Public Health, and Omega Research Foundation based on their extensive experience in the field of torture investigation and documentation. The Toolkit is therefore an excellent way in which individuals who have suffered police brutality can accurately document those acts to produce a strong evidence base to advocate for accountability for perpetrators.

The Toolkit consists of an Illustrated Guide and a Documentation Form which are available in nine languages: English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Bengali and Farsi.

Download a PDF and share over WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, or other messaging services:

Designed to be easy to use and with eye-catching images, the Toolkit consists of an Illustrated Guide

Major protests against the government of Kenyan President William Ruto began in 2023 over rising living costs and new taxes, intensified in 2024 with the Kenya Finance Bill. A year later, in June 2025, demonstrations erupted again—this time driven by rising living costs, widespread anger over police corruption, and the death of a Kenyan blogger who died in police custody. These youth‑led, anti‑government protests have repeatedly been met with severe repression. Over several years, police have responded with lethal force and have used so‑called “less‑lethal” weapons in ways that amount to torture, causing serious injuries and long‑term harm. In 2024 Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU), together with IRCT, documented in a report police violations including extrajudicial killings, illegal arrests, and enforced disappearances.

In 2025, all four IRCT member organisations in Kenya received grants to strengthen their rehabilitation services for survivors of this violence. The International Forensic Expert Group (IFEG) drew on its expertise in forensic pathology to support justice efforts for families of those unlawfully killed by the State, and held a three-day training for pathologists from IMLU’s network, who work as independent forensic observers in cases of police violence, and reviewed cases being considered for strategic litigations in the national courts.

Protester holding a sign in Nairobi protesting the killing of Over a hundred protesters killed and several hundreds wounded between 2024 and 2025, with police violence driving one of Kenya’s deadliest protest cycles. Credit: StoryZangu Hub, unsplash.

The July Uprising in Bangladesh in 2024 was a nationwide protest movement that ultimately led to the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s 15‑year Awami League government on 5 August. Led largely by students, demonstrations expanded rapidly throughout July. In response, the government deployed security forces who used tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets, and live ammunition, often firing indiscriminately into crowds and directly at protesters.

By early August, the scale of violence had become stark. A UN report drawing on multiple credible sources estimates that as many as 1,400 people were killed between 15 July and 5 August, with more than 400 students losing their eyesight. Nationwide, over 20,000 people were injured, and more than 11,000 were arrested. The July Uprising is now widely recognised as one of the most severe episodes of State repression in Bangladesh’s recent history.

IRCT led on drafting a series of statements (in English and Bengali) aimed at the government in Dhaka and its international partners, as well as providing emergency grants and training on torture documentation for our new member Human Rights Development Centre (HRDC). In response to documentation and rehabilitation needs IRCT worked with Omega Research Foundation and Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) as members of the United Against Torture Consortium (UATC) to provide training and documentation mission in 2025.

Cover image of IRCT partner, Sapran’s research report examining the indiscriminate use of pellet guns during the July–August 2024 mass uprising in Bangladesh.

In 2024, Georgia saw a sharp rise in torture and ill‑treatment linked to mass protests against the “Russian Law.”

Peaceful demonstrators faced a severe police crackdown, with at least 300 people arrested and many beaten during arrest or detention. Former IRCT President Lela Tsiskarishvili warned of escalating violence, and by October those concerns were confirmed: of 156 detainees visited by the Ombudsman’s office, 124 reported abuse. Lawyers for those detained documented broken bones, facial injuries, and severe effects from chemical irritants. Journalists were also targeted, with more than 50 injured or obstructed. These actions violate Georgia’s Constitution and its international human rights obligations.

“This is the most violent crackdown by police since the 2007 protests,” said said Lela Tsiskarishvili, former IRCT President and Executive Director of the Georgian Centre for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (GCRT).

The preliminary findings published by IRCT suggested Georgia had pursued “a coordinated policy and practice of systematically torturing and ill-treating protesters and supporters.”

Mass protests in Colombia against the social and economic policies of President Ivan Duque have been met by a brutal response from police. HRW found at least 20 protesters were likely directly killed by the police while local NGOs, including the Defend Freedom Campaign and IRCT member the Centre for Psychological Assistance (CAPS), have documented at least 78 deaths.

In total, nearly 4,000 cases of physical violence against protesters have been documented, according to CAPS, with around 100 of those being specific gender-based sexual violence, including multiple rapes.

After reviewing photographic evidence of violence against protesters, IRCT’s Independent Forensic Expert Group (IFEG) issued an expert opinion that concluded live ammunition was being used on and had caused the deaths of individuals, and that police weapons such as teargas and kinetic impact projectiles were being misused, causing death and severe injury.

IRCT has made a series of films in the Survivors Speak Out series available on its Youtube page.

Read IFEG’s Opinion

Laura Guerrero: ‘My Son Lives on in the Struggle We Fight’

Andrés Juan Guerrero Rubiano: ‘Some Are Perpetrators, Some Are Victims’

Keiry Movilla Salazar: ‘We Don’t Stay Silent’

Juan Pablo Fonseca Roa: ‘Popular Movements Are Our Greatest Tool’

Released in November 2021 following nine months of work, the IRCT’s ‘Belarus: A Coordinated Policy of Torture’ was the first such published report by forensic experts and found “compelling evidence” of “a coordinated policy and practice of systematic torture and ill-treatment against Belarusian citizens” detained for protesting 2020’s rigged presidential elections in Europe’s last dictatorship.

The report, made possible through a Swiss government donation, was widely published online and garnered interest from foreign ministries, NGOs and journalists. The UN Investigative Mechanism to investigate and document human rights violations in Belarus adopted the IRCT’s findings in its latest report and the IRCT has been collaborating with the mechanism to gain access to evidence.

Belarus report in English

Belarus report in Russian