Stop the trade and use of tools of torture

Last year we were delighted to raise over £4,000 towards the development of our online data platform through our involvement in GlobalGiving’s Accelerator programme.

This platform will help us to share our information about the trade and use of weapons and equipment used to commit acts of violence, including rubber bullets, restraints like handcuffs, electric shock weapons, and tear gas.

Thanks to the generous support of our donors, activists will be able to more effectively lobby to control the trade and use of tools of torture, and legal professionals could better evaluate the legality of use of force incidents. Omega staff also use the database to help journalists and human rights defenders more easily identify equipment used in torture, where it came from, and risks associated. 

Over the past few months, Omega staff and volunteers have been working hard to collate and prepare data from our archive ready to be shared via the platform. This archive includes:

• information on thousands of companies and products,
• several thousand images,
• hundreds of case studies of the abusive use of equipment, and
• data on arms fairs and exhibitors from the 1980s to the present day.

 Discussions have also continued with our developers about the design of the platform and the best approach to making the data as accessible as possible.

Omega staff continue to research the manufacture, trade and use of law enforcement and security equipment and are continuing to update our database with the latest information.

Here are some recent examples of how the information in our database has been used in our research:

• Omega’s research uncovered the continued attendance of Russian defence companies at international arms fairs, despite international condemnation of the country’s invasion of Ukraine. 
• Omega’s data was used in training we provided to the Unit for Investigation and Litigation in the Ayotzinapa Case in Mexico, as part of wider technical assistance to support their work. 
• Information in Omega’s database informed our role in assembly monitoring of the 2022 Paris Labour Day protests. The monitoring was coordinated by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

Once the data platform has been launched, the information used by Omega to complete this work will be freely available to others, including journalists, academics, activists and human rights defenders.

Please see the GlobalGiving website, Omega’s own website, or get in touch with us (at info@omegaresearchfoundation.org) to learn more about our plans for the platform. Through short reports, we will continue to share details of our progress.

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Links:

• Our website