Irish News Opinion Piece - Human Rights Must Become a Policing Priority

By Clara Reilly, Chairperson of the United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets.

Biopic: Clara Reilly is also a founding member of Relatives for Justice and the Association for Legal Justice (ALJ). The body of this article was first printed in the Irish News on 1st June.

The Plastic Bullet issue must concern every person with an interest in the preservation of human rights.
 
Past violations caused by plastic bullets include 17 deaths, brain damage, paralysis, limbs destroyed, blinding, deafness, and internal organ damage, mostly against civilians, many of them children.
Since 1994, in the time of a "peace process", thousands of plastic bullets have been fired. Over £2.5 million has been paid in compensation to the injured of plastic bullets. This figure applies to people injured from both sides of the community. No RUC officer has been held to account for the actions that led to these severe injuries. Investigation or limitation has not accompanied the admission of liability that such compensation suggests.

Current guidelines require full accounting for the dispersal of plastic bullets, should they be used. It requires that officers aim at the ground and from no less than 25 metres distance. With all of the deaths and many of the injuries being sustained as a result of firing at close proximity and above waist level it is clear that there is scant regard for current guidelines on the use of plastic bullets. Given the extent and ferocity of injuries it is also clear that the current plastic bullet is not a safe or acceptable method of "crowd control".

Domestic human rights bodies are not alone in their concerns - they are shared by many. These include An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern who personally removed all plastic bullets from the armouries of the Republic, also the United Nations Committee Against Torture who in 1998 recommended the abolition of plastic bullets. It was in this context that the Patten Report on the future of policing stressed the importance of the development of acceptable policing to any continuing peace and stated its desire to see the phasing out of plastic bullets.

Rather than moving towards this aim on April 4th under the ironic banner of "Driving Forward Patten Recommendations" John Reid announced that a new plastic bullet would be introduced, they were deployed on Friday, June 1st.

The MoD’s Scientific Advisory Committee examined the likely injuries caused by the new bullet against the current bullet. It changed its own terms of reference four times, each time realising the dangers of the new bullet; their final report is the ‘best’ possible scenario. The MoD concluded that further tests should be carried out.

The bullet is claimed to be more "accurate" at 30 metres partly because of the high velocity from which it now leaves the gun, at 164 mph. The firing charge has been augmented to allow this greater speed of bullet. The measurement of the force of a bullet is conducted through kinetic energy, measured in joules. The implications of this are easiest explained by comparing a car and a child. If a car is travelling at 10mph and hits a child it will hurt the child but the child will probably live and make a recovery. If a car hits a child at 30mph it will likely kill a child - so a car is at a lethal speed if it travels at 30mph.
A plastic bullet measuring 122 joules of kinetic energy is considered a lethal weapon by the United States own military scientists. The new plastic bullet will have a measurement of 244 joules. It is a lethal weapon by every measurement. We see this as a further development of the lethal weapon we have endured since rubber bullets started to be used in 1971.

At a measurement of exactly 30 metres, these bullets can claim accuracy but the bullet will cause greater incidence of life diminishing intra-abdominal injuries. If it hits the head it will cause severe injuries to the brain, if it hits a person head on it will likely become imbedded in the skull.

The safety and accuracy of the bullet, over which the Secretary of State stands, depends on the range being 30 metres, no more, no less. It also depends on the weapon being aimed at waist level or below. Not only does this not take into account past experience of RUC officers deliberately firing at head height but also does not take into account a child’s head height. We cannot begin to tell what will happen if it is aimed at a person at a range of over 40 metres, what the implications of a ricochet to bystanders or people in their homes may be. With the lethal velocity of the new plastic bullet rounds, based on previous experience we can only fear the worst.

Bertie Ahern has publicly stated that the introduction of the new bullet runs contrary to the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement and the Patten Report. It also runs in the face of international opinion and in the face of a movement towards a more human rights based society.

John Reid in a less than understanding mood in May told the sister of Brian Stewart (killed by a plastic bullet when he was 13 standing outside his home, on a quiet sunny evening), plastic bullets didn’t kill three and a half thousand people. He is right but missing the point entirely. These weapons are used on civilians. The vast majority of those killed by plastic and rubber bullets were killed in non-riot situations. Nine of them were children; one was a mother of the 3-month-old baby going to a shop. The plastic bullet is a lethal weapon designed for use in civilian crowd control environments. Live rounds would be unacceptable and illegal in these situations, plastic bullets must be seen in the same light.

Politicians from across the spectrum are engaged in a process of trying to ensure that no more people lose their lives leaving tragedy and heartbreak behind. And no more people left permanently scarred and disabled. Human rights must underpin that process. Introducing more lethal weaponry runs contrary to this.
 
We have heard again and again that in order for it to be successful the new police service must become acceptable to all sections of the community. This includes when it faces difficult policing situations.

The Metropolitan Chief Commissioner John Stevens stated when faced with possible massive civil disturbance on the streets last May Day, that under no circumstances would he be deploying plastic bullets. Maybe it was his experience here which informed him of the implications of using lethal force in civilian crowd control situations.

A new police service cannot and will not be acceptable if it is using an unacceptable weapon.
 

United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets To The Fore
Since this article was published Relatives for Justice committee members who are also members of the  The United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets met formally for the first time with a British Secretary of State at a meeting between John Reid and Relatives for Justice. One of the issues on the agenda dealing with the legacy of state violence was the continuing use of plastic bullets..
On 23rd July Emma Groves, Clara Reilly and Kate Duffy presented thousands of signatures collected by UCAPB, RFJ and The Pat Finucane Centre, calling on all parties to the political institutions to insist on the banning of plastic bullets as a prerequisite to the establishment of acceptable policing.
John Reid listened politely to what our members had to say in relation to this issue. However, he clearly and vociferously defended the decision to introduce this more lethal weapon to the armoury of the RUC and British Army.
It is clear from the engagement that the Government strategy is to wait on the Patten Implementation Team to report with an alternative to plastic bullets, before they will move on this issue, if they move at all.
This Team were due to have issued their deliberations at the end of this Autumn.
The following article by our friend Steve Wright from the Omega Foundation shows clearly how we must be on our guard on this issue.
 

Youth Show their Concern

A group of young people from Relatives for Justice worked day and night to show their outrage at the introduction of the new plastic bullet. This mural at the bottom of the Falls Road is 30metres long and 10metres high. It depicts the range at which the new bullet is supposedly “accurate” and “safe”. It graphically shows how so many of the victims of plastic bullets were killed well within that range, a number at point blank range, nine of them children.
We would like to thank Conor Kennedy and Danny Devenney for their selfless and incredibly professional help in this project.