NORTHERN IRELAND:
MONITORING THE 1998 MARCHING SEASON

Observers Express Concern Over Heavy-Handed Police Response

(Portadown, Northern Ireland -- 4:00 p.m. GMT, July 13, 1998) Human Rights Watch observers expressed concern today that the police response to loyalist protesters on the nights of July 10, 11, and 12 was heavy-handed and in violation of international standards for the use of force. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that two people were severely injured as a result of plastic bullet use. One man suffered serious brain injuries and a twenty-one-year old woman was blinded in her right eye.

This bulletin includes a lengthy statement from a volunteer medic at Drumcree who assisted the injured and was an eyewitness to plastic bullet use. The statement, coupled with our researchers' observations, indicates that the Royal Ulster Constabalary (RUC) used plastic bullets in violation of their own internal guidelnine and international standards.

Human Rights Watch has called repeatedly for a total ban on plastic bullets. Plastic bullets have killed fourteen people in Northern Ireland, including seven children since the RUC began their use. Human Rights Watch recognizes that the current situation in Northern Ireland -- particularly at Drumcree -- poses numerous difficulties for the security forces. Regardless of those difficulties, it is incumbent upon the RUC and the British army to police in conformity with internationally recognized norms.

The police have responded to violent protest actions by loyalist supporters of the Orange Order with plastic bullet fire numerous times this week. Over the nights of July 10, 11, and 12, loyalists breached the security cordon erected around the church on several occasions. They shot ball bearings across a trench dug by the security forces and lobbed petrol bombs and fire crackers at RUC riot squads at the forefront of the security forces defense line. On Thursday night, a nail bomb was thrown at a riot squad injuring three police officers. Live ammunition was also fired at the security forces. According to RUC statistics, there have been over 598 attacks on the security forces (including nineteen shooting incidents and forty-four bombings) between July 4 and July 12, at 5am. Seventy officers have been injured.

While the statistics illustrate the challenges facing the RUC, the police response to such a challenge must -- at all times-- be proportionate to the actual dangers presented. Human Rights Watch observers note that plastic bullets appear to have been fired in several instances where there was no imminent threat to life or the possibility of grievous bodily injury against the riot squad at the frontline. Thus, it appears that RUC officers are not making a distinction between illegal activity that poses a serious threat to life, or might cause injury, with protest activity that -- while illegal -- poses no such threat and may, therefore, be handled without the use of plastic bullets. Plastic bullets can be deadly. Less violent measures must always be employed first to quell protest activity that does not pose a serious threat.

On July 11, Human Rights Watch interviewed an Orange Order steward and volunteer medic at Drumcree Church. The steward noted that 472 plastic bullets were fired on Friday, July 10. 751 plastic bullets were fired overall between July 4 and 12. (These figures has been confirmed by official RUC statistics):

The crowd that was here was smaller numbers compared to the previous night. Yes, there was a young drunken element that managed to get over that ditch [a deep trench dug by the RUC to deter people gathering around the church from crossing the fields leading to the Garvaghy Road]. How they got over beats me because its so deep. Those people were concentrated in a small area. There's still about two rows of barbed wire before they even got to any police.

[I]t started, and yes, there was stone throwing and bottle throwing. And this started at quarter to nine and onwards. And as soon as it started there were three young fellas that went over and across [the trench]. They were no real threat to the police or the army. The army and the police were forming a semi-circle. They just opened fire. And it wasn't one man who opened fire. Maybe six or seven different positions were firing baton rounds. All firing over the line or sorta the way in a small arc. I seen one man standing and again all he was doing was standing and dancing sorta a "hey c'mon." Six people fired at that one man.

[T]he first point I would like to make -- the first three fellows that went over, one of those guys was hit. He was hit in the arm, in the shoulder region, and he was injured, and he went down. And the other two guys that was with him went over to him and they were trying to get that one fella out. For near a good solid twenty minutes he didn't get out. These were two fellas with their backs to the line of defense... [the security forces]. [They were] trying to lift that fella. And every time they appeared out from under the ground that they were hiding behind, to carry him backways away from that, they were just being fired on and they were no threat to anybody. I was standing on the bank shouting at them to stop firing and I got him out.

I'm not justifying what anybody was doing but you could clearly identify the people who were across doing the rioting and those who weren't because anybody who was across had to get over that ditch, climb up the bank and get over that pile of soft muck that had just been scooped up out of that ditch that day. So they were covered with muck and everything so with any injuries we were clearly able to tell whether they were or weren't involved. Some obviously were involved, others weren't. And I'd probably say the majority of those hit weren't involved in anything. Out of the twenty people injured, twelve had from the chest up or head injuries. The one was frightening, the sight of it, not being involved in first aid at all before. There was a girl that was standing well back from the frontline -- wasn't involved in any rioting. She was hit in the eye and we haven't heard yet whether she's lost it or not. I think she was about fifteen. [Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the woman, who is actually twenty-one years old, lost vision in her right eye as a result of the attack.]

The main number of injuries were sustained anytime from about 11:00 p.m. or half ten through to about half one, two o'clock. That was the real intense period. That was twenty injuries that were dealt with up here [the first aid center]. There was a number of other less major injuries which we patched up down there. And sent the people, you know if they were able to walk, we let them walk. At least fifty were dealt with on site.

Every injury we dealt with last night was a plastic bullet injury. There were more serious injuries, I mentioned to you the girl hit in the eye. There's a guy that just got it right there, in the head [pointed to forehead]. His front head was just pushed right in. There's a guy, the one I seen, who was split from there right through to there [pointing from top of skull to back of skull]. And the first aider I was with said just give me your two hands and she just said put them there [motioning to both sides of his head]. And when I got down I could see right through to the bone of his skull. She said push up and I just pushed up to keep the wound closed. She put a dressing on. It had obviously just hit here [front part of skull] and went straight through.

It is clear because of the injuries sustained the previous night by a blast bomb it seemed to be last night was pay-back time.

[Q: There were a certain number of people who went over the ditch but what about those who were standing back and were injured. What exactly was going on?]

They were doing nothing. They were just standing watching what the ones who were over were doing. That's what I'm saying, last night, for the number of bullets that were fired, there were only about twenty people that were over at any one stage, sometimes not even that. Whereas the previous night in a bigger section of the field at one stage you had upwards of a thousand people over and there was no where near the amount of plastic bullets fired that night. You know this is the thing that's been working at my mind. Where's the justification in firing on twenty people that amount and you can see when you're standing there it was just bang-bang-bang. It wasn't just bang in the space of five minutes.

I just cannot understand. The crowd on Thursday night were probably more hostile and did pose a more severe threat. The numbers that were across, they clearly did. If they wanted to they could have gone further. They posed a greater threat than the twenty drunken "yabos" of last night.

This steward also described to our observers the situation on Saturday night, July 11. During the course of the night, two persons were seriously injured by plastic bullets. The steward told us in an interview conducted on July 12, 1998, that there was a young man dancing on a wall near the barricade on Saturday night:

He was on the lower wall just beside the barricades and he was hit in the back of the head with a plastic bullet and he didn't fall that way [motions to one side]. He fell this way [motions in opposite direction] right in the middle of a ditch filled with barbed wire. If you look at the barrier, he fell off the wall on the right. If he had fallen a bit more he would have actually been into the water.

[Q: What was possibility that they could have breached the barricade and gotten onto the other side?]

None at all. There were concrete barriers he had no chance of getting over. He was going nowhere. Again, he was no risk to anybody.

It wasn't as busy last night as previous nights when we were just on the go the whole time but again there were two hospitalized last night. One actually was a head injury; the back of his head was just hanging out. The other guy was hit in the windpipe. He was standing in front of the mound [of dirt] but again that was about two o'clock that happened. [Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the man who was hit in the head that night is in critical condition in the hospital. He required brain surgery and doctors have indicated that he may be permanently brain damaged as a result of his injury.]

Human Rights Watch observers on the scene on the nights of July 10, 11, and 12 confirm that plastic bullets were fired indiscriminately and in violation of the RUC's own guidelines. Of twenty serious injuries attended to at a first aid center in the Drumcree Church hall, twelve were head and upper body injuries. RUC guidelines require that plastic bullets be targeted below the waist. Our observers likewise witnessed rounds of plastic bullets being fired in circumstances where there was no threat to the life of a security force member or where serious injury to a security force member was imminent. Although live ammunition was fired at security forces on Friday night, most of the plastic bullet injuries described above occurred before the live rounds were fired.

In a separate incident that occurred on Saturday night, RUC officers appeared to use excessive and disproportionate force in the course of an arrest. That night, several young men attempted to climb over a massive barricade outside the church. In response, an RUC riot squad apprehended the youths, forcing them down from the barricade. Two persons were arrested. Human Rights Watch researchers observed that during the course of securing the arrests, the police exerted excessive force. Our observers noted that RUC officers continued to beat the young men and kick them even after the men had submitted and no longer posed any threat.

The injuries described in this report, and the circumstances under which such injuries were inflicted by the security forces, further strengthens Human Rights Watch's argument for a ban on plastic bullets. Moreover, we call again on the RUC and British army to exercise restraint with respect to the use of force in all situations in these difficult times.

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