At Milipol, Chinese exhibitors promoted illegal equipment

Steel-tipped batons, thumb handcuffs, chains: several Chinese companies promoted banned law enforcement equipment during the Milipol trade fair organized near Paris, Amnesty International said on Friday, November 17. NGO Omega Research and the organizer.

“The research team found that four Chinese companies were promoting illegal equipment in their marketing materials, including spiked batons, handcuffs, leg restraints, leg restraints with attached handcuffs, and leg guards. -spiked arms», Say Amnesty and Omega Research in a press release.

“These are products which are considered only as being capable of being used for torture and therefore promotion is prohibited at European trade fairs.“, Aymeric Elluin, head of Amnesty International, told AFP. These cases werereported to the organizers, who took the necessary measures“, according to him.

The pages of exhibitor catalogs presenting these materials were torn or removed and the companies were given formal notice, the president of Milipol, prefect Yann Jounot, confirmed to AFP. “We are accountable for this requirement of conformity with regard to European regulations, the more we strengthen control the better off we are.“, he pleaded.

“Inherently abusive material”

A partnership has been established between the organizers and Amnesty for several editions to ensure compliance with regulations by exhibitors. A “good practice” Who “should be applied in other salons around the world», Wished Michael Crowley, of Omega Research.

Beyond the controls carried out by NGOs, teams from the organizer “run all day on the stands”, to ensure this, without counting “those of state services», according to Yann Jounot, who mentions “some materials deleted by (its) services“.

“It’s the driver’s problem. Even though you have 40 police officers, there can always be someone driving at 200 km/h“, he lamented. Beyond illegal materials in Europe, Amnesty and Omega claim to have also found at the show “material identified as inherently abusive by the UN special rapporteur on torture“.

Among them, an electric shock stick marketed by a Chinese company, an electric glove sold by a French company or even “munitions that contain small kinetic impact projectiles» like rubber balls, according to Aymeric Elluin. This equipment is not prohibited at this stage and NGOs are calling for the strengthening of European legislation.