22 LAW-ENFORCEMENT EQUIPMENT IN CENTRAL ASIA AND THE SOUTH CAUCASUS people eventually gathered in front of the White House in Bishkek in a standoff with security forces. As the situation escalated, security forces fired on the demonstrators with live ammunition.51 Tajikistan In 2012 Amnesty International reported that allegations of abuse in Tajikistan include ‘the use of electric shocks to the body, including the genitals... [and] beating with batons, truncheons, sticks... kicking and punching are also reported as common’.52 In the same year HRW urged Tajik authorities to ‘respect human rights during a security operation in Gorno Badakhshan, a semi-autonomous region of eastern Tajikistan’.53 According to HRW’s report: On July 24, it was widely reported that Tajik authorities dispatched hundreds of troops, along with helicopter gunships and armored vehicles, to Khorog to apprehend Tolib Ayombekov, a deputy commander of a Tajik–Afghan border unit and an opposition leader during the 1992–1997 Tajikistan civil war, and several of his associates . . . As of July 28, official sources reported that the violence had killed 17 government soldiers, 30 gunmen, and 20 civilians. Independent sources reported greater numbers of casualties among the general population. Turkmenistan A 2013 Amnesty International report recorded, inter alia, the use of electric shocks, beatings with batons and truncheons, and prolonged use of shackles.54 While reports of protests are rare, Amnesty International, the UN and others have highlighted the lack of fundamental freedoms in Turkmenistan, including the freedom of assembly.55 Uzbekistan A 2002 UN SRT report contained multiple examples of the use of equipment and devices on prisoners. One prisoner ‘had reportedly been given electric shocks and had been kept in cold water for eight days’. Another’s hands ‘were 51 Human Rights Watch (HRW), Where is the Justice?: Inter-ethnic Violence in Southern Kyrgyzstan and Its Aftermath, (HRW: Brussels, 2010), <http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/ kyrgyzstan0810webwcover_1.pdf>, p. 23. 52 Amnesty International, Shattered Lives: Torture and Other Ill Treatment in Tajikistan, <https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/24000/eur600042012en.pdf>. 53 Human Rights Watch (HRW), Tajikistan: Respect Rights in Security Operations, (HRW: New York, 2012), <http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/07/30/tajikistan-respect-rights-security-operations>. 54 Amnesty International, An Era of Happiness or More of the Same Repression?, EUR 61/005/2013, <https://www.amnesty.nl/sites/default/files/public/turkmenistanhrreport12december13.pdf >. 55 United Nations, General Assembly, <http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G09/102/10/ PDF/G0910210.pdf?OpenElement>; and Amnesty International, ‘Turkmenistan: total repression ahead of elections’, 12 Dec. 2013, <http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/turkmenistan-total-repression-aheadelections-2013-12-11>.