Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 11/28/2011 5:35, Warp wrote:
> > ok to physically torture
> > protesters who are not a danger to anybody?

> Well, it's *supposed* to be in preference to something even more violent. If 
> someone is attacking you, do you club them in the face, shoot them, or spray 
> pepper spray on them?

  Sometimes violence is an unfortunate necessity even in an ideal world
(ie. one where the authorities and the police force are completely exemplar;
and there actually are many countries where that's close to reality) in
order to stop violent criminals or other people who are clearly an imminent
danger to others and will not stand down on their own.

  Because of this, as you say, non-lethal means to do this have been
developed in cases where the perpetrator is unarmed and killing him would
be way out of proportion, while still keeping the police officers themselves
as safe as possible. Pepper spray and tasers are two such inventions.

  The problem is that in some countries the police has got completely
derailed with this. They have misunderstood "non-lethal" to mean the same
thing as "safe to use". For example in Britain it was at some point even
customary for the police to tase first, ask questions later (literally;
I'm not kidding.) AFAIK after enough people *died* because of this, some
of them completely innocent of any crime, the rules were changed.

  Same with pepper spray. There are some countries (most prominently the US)
where it's used as some kind of standard way of controlling people, no
matter how peaceful they might be. This completely ignores the fact that
pepper spray can actually cause damage, permanent damage in extreme cases
(I think one of the most extreme cases is losing eyesight because the
pepper spray damages the eyes too much).

  And of course there's the point of view that using such methods on people
who are not acting dangerously can certainly be seen as a form of torture,
which is against the most basic international human rights agreements.
Even if those people were technically speaking breaking the law, and even
if they outright refuse to stop, torturing them is still completely
unacceptable.

  I have never heard or read any such misconduct from the part of the
Finnish police. There might have been some cases, but I have so far never
heard of them (which I assume means that even if there have been cases of
police brutality, they are pretty rare here).

  In fact, I have seen some youtube videos from Finland, filmed by some
bystander using a cellphone camera, where the police arrests someone who
is acting violent, and in most cases they seem to be almost ridiculously
careful, and resort to extreme means only as a last resort. I don't remember
ever seeing them using tasers, much less drawing their pistols, against an
unarmed person.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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