The company has also manufactured and, as of November 2017, promoted BCS-1
"Bouquet" Bracelets which allow five prisoners to be restrained, “[p]roviding simultaneous
control of the escorted group”. In addition to its potential use in transporting groups of
prisoners, the company stated that the BCS-1 Bouquet also allows the “possibility of fixing
[a] group…to a fixed support.” 193 According to the company, both the BCS-1 “Prikol” and
“Bouquet” were “adopted [by] the Ministry of the Interior [and] the Federal Security
Services”194
While some fixed restraints are developed and promoted for the sole purpose of restraining
prisoners, certain other fixed restraints have been promoted for a variety of purposes
including prisoner restraint.
ALFA - PROJ spol. s r.o (Czech Republic)
A screenshot of “Ralkem 9923”
downloaded from ALFA PROJ spol. s r.o, website,
January 2018.
The Czech company ALFA - PROJ spol. s r.o, has manufactured and promoted a range of
restraint equipment. Among the products advertised on the company website, is a range of
“handcuffs and leg-irons” including the “Ralkem 9923.”195 This constitutes a single cuff
connected to a 20 cm chain linked to a large rectangular end piece. Although the product has
been marketed for attachment to suitcases, ALFA - PROJ on its website previously described
the product as “Handcuffs - Business - police handcuffs –9923” and stated a potential use
was “to confine persons in detention.”196 This reference was subsequently removed following
an information request from Amnesty International and the Omega Research Foundation on
20 May 2015, in response to which ALFA-PROJ stated that the information on its website
was “faulty”.197 In subsequent correspondence with the Omega Research Foundation, the
company stated that “product Ralkem 9923 has not been sold to any military body, law
enforcement agency or correctional service between 2012 and 2017.”198 As of January 2018,
this product was still promoted on the company website. This product has also been promoted
193
BCS-1 "Bouquet" Bracelets, NPO- Special Materials Corporation, http://www.nposm.ru/specialnye_sredstva/naruchniki/bks-1_buket/ (accessed 16 November 2017).
194
NPO-Special Materials Corporation op.cit. (accessed 16 November 2017).
195
Ralkem 9923, Handcuffs and leg irons, ALFA - PROJ spol. s r.o, www.alfa-proj.cz/pouta-sluzebni-policejnipouta/9923-s289415 (accessed 17 January 2018).
196
For further discussion see: Amnesty International & Omega Research Foundation, Grasping the Nettle:
Ending Europe’s Trade in Torture Technology, EUR 01/1632/2015, May 2015, p.19.
197
Correspondence to Amnesty International and the Omega Research Foundation from ALFA-PROJ spol.s.r.o,
20 May 2015.
198
Correspondence from Alfra Proj to the Omega Research Foundation, 11 December 2017,
40
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