The fence was maybe six feet tall. People started putting their hands up – but the cops wouldn’t let up. It was can after can after can [of tear gas]. We were encapsulated in gas. We were drooling and coughing uncontrollably. Then the cops came from the other side of the fence and started gassing from that direction. After that the police started coming up the hill and… they were hitting and tackling people. They were dragging people down the hill and forcing them down on their knees, lining them up, kneeling on the median on the highway with their hands in zip ties – and pulling down their masks and spraying and gassing them again.”30 “We were encapsulated in gas. We were drooling and coughing uncontrollably. Then the cops came from the other side of the fence and started gassing from that direction. After that the police started coming up the hill and… they were hitting and tackling people.” Protester in the Vine Street Expressway, Philadelphia, USA, 1 June 2020 Philadelphia, PA – 1 June 2020: Protesters race up a hill after being shot by tear gas after a march on 1 June 2020 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images) As protests escalated in 2019 in Hong Kong, police used chemical irritants in large quantities – firing 800 tear gas canisters in a single day – and in some cases in circumstances which could amount to ill-treatment. For example, on 11 August 2019, police repeatedly fired tear gas inside the Kwai Fong Mass Transit Railway station – a confined space with limited exits.31 Footage from HK Apple Daily shows a police officer in protective gear spraying 14 shots of suspected pepper spray at close range in the face of a man sitting alone on the edge of an outdoor planter during the daytime on 12 June in Lung Wo Road. The use of sprays was clearly unnecessary and disproportionate as the man posed no threat and in fact behaved passively through the whole ordeal.32 30 Amnesty International, USA: The world is watching mass violations by U.S. police of Black Lives Matter protesters’ rights, (Index: AMR 51/2807/2020) p. 30 31 YouTube, Hong Kong police fire tear gas in Kwai Fong MTR station, 11 August 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=baulep4aXck 32 Amnesty International, How not to police a protest: unlawful use of force by Hong Kong police, (Index: ASA 17/0576/2019) 16 ENDING THE TORTURE TRADE THE PATH TO GLOBAL CONTROLS ON THE ‘TOOLS OF TORTURE’ Amnesty International | Omega Research Foundation