Paris [20 November 2025] — A research team from Amnesty International France and the Omega Research Foundation discovered Chinese companies marketing illegal torture equipment at the Milipol arms and security trade fair, taking place in Paris this week. The fair organizers have taken measures against the firms involved.
The import and export of a range of torture equipment have been prohibited in the European Union since 2006 under the EU Anti-Torture Regulation. In 2019, the EU strengthened this Regulation by prohibiting the promotion and display of torture equipment at trade fairs and, in 2025, the list of prohibited and controlled equipment was extended.
The Amnesty International and Omega researchers were granted access to monitor Milipol by the trade fair’s organisers, Civipol and Comexposium, to ensure that the regulation is enforced and to bring any companies that we find to be breaching it to the attention of the authorities.
The research team discovered three Chinese companies promoting illegal equipment: spiked anti-riot shields, weighted leg restraints, and weighted leg restraints attached to handcuffs. Amnesty International and Omega have raised their findings with Milipol’s exhibit control office.
Comexposium, the organizer of the event, demanded that the Chinese companies cut out the relevant pages of the catalogs or remove the catalogs altogether. After one State owned company failed to comply, their stall was closed. Amnesty International and the Omega Research Foundation acknowledges the measures put in place to enforce the European Regulation. All organisers of arms and security equipment fairs should, as a minimum, adopt similar measures.
“We welcome the quick and effective action of the fair organisers in halting the promotion of goods prohibited under the EU Anti Torture Regulation. This sends a strong message to all manufacturers and traders in such goods that their promotion will not be tolerated at Milipol. The European Commission should now develop guidance for EU states and companies organizing trade fairs to ensure such regulation occurs consistently throughout the region”. Said Dr Michael Crowley, a Senior Researcher of the Omega Research Foundation.
The team also found Brazilian, Israeli and South Korean companies promoting drones equipped with multi-barrel launchers capable of dispersing large amounts of chemical irritants. The EU Anti-Torture Regulation bans such equipment if it dispenses ”injurious quantities of riot control agents from aerial platforms.“ Unfortunately, the EU Regulation does not establish the threshold for “injurious quantities of riot control agent”. Without clear limits on what constitutes an ‘injurious quantity’ of riot control agents, these systems risk enabling serious human rights violations and creating a chilling effect on the right to protest. Amnesty International and Omega are now calling on the European Commission to clarify this “threshold” and on the French authorities to determine if the goods displayed at Milipol breach the Regulation.
The research team also found a further range of equipment identified as inherently abusive by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. In her 2023 reports she called on all States to ban the manufacture, promotion and trade of 20 types of law enforcement equipment.
Among the equipment found on stalls were electric shock batons, stun guns, electric shock gloves, ammunition containing multiple kinetic impact projectiles and multiple barrel launchers firing kinetic impact projectiles. These products are marketed by Brazilian, Chinese, Czech, French, Indian, Israeli, Italian, Kazakh, North Macedonian South Korean, Turkish and US companies. Some of the items identified were listed in catalogues distributed at Milipol, while others were found being physically displayed on the company’s marketing stalls.
At present the EU Anti-Torture Regulation does not currently prohibit a range of inherently abusive equipment that Amnesty International and Omega have called to be banned, including direct contact electric shock weapons, multiple kinetic impact projectiles and multi-barrel launchers.
Amnesty International and Omega have strongly welcomed the recent expansion of the range of goods prohibited and controlled under the EU Anti Torture Regulation. However, both organisations are calling for the Regulation to be further strengthened in line with the UN Special Rapporteur’s 2023 recommendations. At a minimum the EU Anti-Torture Regulation’s prohibited goods list should be expanded to include direct contact electric shock weapons, ammunition containing multiple kinetic impact projectiles (KIPs) and multi-barrel KIP launchers. Such changes would consequently outlaw the promotion and trade of these goods across the 27 EU Member States.
“The discoveries made at Milipol once again expose the necessity for global regulation. The European Union must now bring its Anti-Torture Regulation fully in line with the UN Special Rapporteur’s recommendations, but regional action alone is not enough. We urgently need a binding Torture-Free Trade Treaty to outlaw inherently abusive law enforcement equipment worldwide and to impose strict human-rights safeguards on the rest,” said Marie Laure Geoffray, freedoms advocacy officer at Amnesty International France.
Background
A comprehensive list of inherently abusive equipment offered by companies at Milipol 2025 according to observations by Amnesty International’s research team and Omega Research Foundation:
Goods prohibited under the EU Anti-Torture Regulation
- Spiked Anti-Riot shields (China)
- Weighted leg-restraints (China)
- Weighted leg restraints attached to handcuffs (China)
Goods prohibited by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture that are not currently prohibited under the EU Anti-Torture Regulation
- Ammunition and hand grenades with multiple kinetic impact projectiles (Brazil, Czech Republic, France, India, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, South Korea, Turkey, US)
- Direct contact electric shock gloves (France)
- Direct contact electric shock batons (China)
- Direct contact stun guns (China, Czech Republic, France)
- Projectile electric shock weapons with direct contact capability (France, US)
- Multi-barrel launchers (Brazil, China, France, India, Israel, South Korea)
The governments of the Member States of the European Union have adopted Regulation (EU) 1236/2005 (EU Trade in Instruments Regulation) torture) concerning “trade in certain goods which could be used for capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. The Regulation entered into force on 31 July 2006.
Under the EU Anti-Torture Regulation, there is an explicit ban on advertising prohibited (Annex II) equipment at trade fairs and exhibitions in the EU, and a further ban on purchasing advertising space/time (including online) for such goods.
The expanded and strengthened lists of prohibited and controlled goods are set out in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/928 of 21 May 2025.
Consolidated version is available here.
In October 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Dr Alice Jill Edwards, transmitted to the UN General Assembly a ‘Thematic study on the global trade in weapons, equipment and devices used by law enforcement and other public authorities that are capable of inflicting torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’. In this groundbreaking study, the UN Special Rapporteur identifies 20 categories of inherently abusive law enforcement equipment that should be banned and 22 categories of law enforcement equipment that may have a legitimate use but can be misused for torture, and whose trade should be strictly controlled