Around the world mass protest movements have taken to the streets in many countries. From Black Lives Matter, Fridays for Future, to cost of living crisis marches and anti war and Palestinian solidarity protests, they have often been met with police repression, through illegal excessive use of force, including with less lethal weapons.
Of particular concern is the huge increase over the last five years of serious and life changing injuries caused by the use of kinetic impact projectiles (so called ‘rubber bullets’), and in particular, ammunition that contains and disperses multiple small projectiles – 10’s or 100’s of hard rubber balls. In 2023 Omega and Amnesty International published a joint investigation, My Eye Exploded – the global abuse of kinetic impact projectiles – highlighting the dozens of people killed and thousands blinded and maimed by kinetic impact projectiles, based on research in 30 countries over the previous 5 years.
In March 2024, Omega spoke on these issues at the UK premier of the documentary film; Reborn Eyes: Story of a Movement in Resistance. The film tells the powerful stories of one group of Colombian victims and survivors. They were amongst those protesting in April 2021 over socioeconomic inequalities, tax reform, ongoing violence, environmental harms, and a lack of social support amid the COVID-19 crisis, among other issues. Protesters were met with heavy-handed police repression, and as the days wore on, a pattern of injury began to emerge: tear gas grenades and projectiles and rubber bullets seemingly aimed at the eyes of protesters.
The film was made collaboratively by MOCAO – Movimiento en Resistencia Contra las Agresiones Oculares del Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios, a national eye trauma survivors’ group, and Lucía Guerrero Rivière from the University of Exeter. Survivors of ocular trauma assisted in making the film and continue their struggle to seek redress for their injuries.
The film will be screened in other countries in collaboration with survivors groups of those affected by ocular trauma arising from police use of force, such as STOP bales de goma in Catalunya.
Unfortunately we are seeing increasing evidence and reports from all regions of eye injuries caused by the use of inappropriate, unlawful or dangerous projectiles fired by police and other security forces, frequently with a degree of recklessness that runs counter to states’ obligations to uphold fundamental rights.
Most recently in Georgia, human rights defenders reported finding ‘rubber bullets’ (small balls made of hardened rubber) and the expended cartridge cases that had contained them. Multiple cases of eye injuries have been reported.
Law enforcement agencies should never use multiple projectile ammunition. Such kinetic impact projectiles are inherently inaccurate and indiscriminate and do not comply with the UN Human Rights Guidance on Less Lethal Weapons in Law Enforcement or the 2024 UN Model Protocol for Law Enforcement. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Dr Alice Edwards, has called for the manufacture, trade and use to be prohibited. States and law enforcement agencies must heed these calls as a matter of urgency.