Another person arrested and taken to the Metropolitan Police Headquarters alleged that, while handcuffed behind his back, a bullet-proof vest was placed over his upper body and several police officers proceeded to deliver punches and baton blows to his body. Further, he stated that they used a “torch device” to deliver electric shocks to his genitals; he claimed that he had blood in his urine for several days thereafter. person ITarrested at the Hungarian border and taken to Novi Sad District Police Station OHIB PRAnother alleged that he was subjected to repeated electric shocks from a hand-held device to the inner part of his legs and his testicles both during transportation and while handcuffed to a safe in a crime inspector’s office. BODY WORN ELECTRIC SHOCK DEVICES DEVICES INCLUDING STUN BELTS, STUN VESTS AND STUN CUFFS Images (from left to right) electric shock stun belt, electric shock ankle cuff (both taken from company promotional materials); and electric shock sleeve (last image© Robin Ballantyne/Omega Research Foundation). A range of electric shock devices are intended for attachment directly to prisoners’ bodies and can be activated by remote control; they include stun belts, stun vests and stun cuffs. They are worn, sometimes for many hours at a time, with the constant threat that they would be activated at any moment, and in the case of stun belts will deliver a 50,000 volt shock, via electrodes placed near the prisoner’s kidneys, resulting in severe pain for the duration of the shock and causing muscles to contract involuntarily, rendering the subject immobile. Other physical effects can include muscular weakness, involuntary urination and defecation, heartbeat irregularities, seizures and welts on the skin. Although both the UN Committee against Torture9 and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture10 have condemned the use of stun belts and recommended such practices be halted, they, and other body worn electric shock devices, have been manufactured by companies in the Americas, Africa and Asia, and have been promoted by companies in all regions of the world. These devices have been used to control prisoners in certain countries including South Africa,11 and some states of the United States of America.12 9 Report of the Committee against Torture, UN Doc. A/55/44 (2000), para. 180(c). 10 CPT, 20th General Report, CPT/Inf (2010)28, 26 October 2010, para. 74. 11 Omega Research Foundation/Institute for Security Studies, “Compliance through pain: Electric shock equipment in South African prisons”, policy brief 86, June 2016. 12 See Omega Research Foundation, “Use of body-worn electric shock in US State prisons”, https://omegaresearchfoundation.org/casestudies/use-body-worn-electric-shock-us-state-prisons COMBATING TORTURE: THE NEED FOR COMPREHENSIVE REGULATION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT EQUIPMENT Amnesty International | Omega Research Foundation 9