According to Amnesty International, the term “police brutality” refers to various human rights violations by police. This might include beatings, racial abuse, unlawful killings, torture, or indiscriminate use of riot control agents at protests, etc. According to Wikipedia, police brutality can be legally defined as a civil rights violation, where law enforcement officers exercise undue or excessive force against a subject.
Now that we all know what police brutality is, I am going to take you on a journey that will highlight patterns of police brutality that have been happening in Liberia, and that would continue to grow if nothing is done about it. I will also be pointing out some of the laws that these unethical behaviors of the police are breaking in order to show you that these actions are illegal and as such need an intervention before the situation goes completely out of hand.
There have been situations and cases in the past where police have used more than the necessary force and could count as police brutality, but those were sparingly few incidents that did not occur as often as it does now. I am of the opinion that the culture of police brutality in Liberia became more frequent in early 2018.
According to the 1986 Constitution of the Republic of Liberia, everyone has certain natural, inherent and inalienable rights, among which is the right of enjoying and defending life and liberty” (Art. 11(a), 1986 Constitution). These rights belong to everyone “irrespective of ethnic background, race, sex, creed, place of origin or political opinion … subject to such qualifications as provided for in the Constitution.” (Art. 11(b), 1986 Constitution). Everyone is “equal before the law” and is “therefore entitled to the equal protection of the law” (Art. 11(c), 1986 Constitution). Furthermore, ‘’Everyone at all times, in an orderly and peaceable manner, shall have the right to assemble and consult upon the common good, to instruct their representatives, to petition the Government or other functionaries for the redress of grievances and to associate fully with others or refuse to associate in political parties, trade unions, and other organizations’’ (Art. 17, 1986 Constitution).
August 25th-27th 2020 were three days where hundreds of Liberiansassembled to speak against the growth of a rape pandemic in the country and urge the President to declare rape a national emergency as well as put measures into place to help curb the situation. The protest was organized by an Affiliation of Women and Child Rights Advocates. The first two days of the protest went smoothly without any problems from the police officers or even from the side of the protesters. However, the President had still refused to come out to meet the protesters and even listen to their demands and this made it seem as if he didn’t even care that our mothers, sisters, daughters and babies were getting raped. Nevertheless, we, the organizers of the protest, decided to still carryout the initial plan and to close the protest on the final day, the 27th of August, with a speaker’s series and a virgil to remember those that had been victims of rape and sexual abuse. So, we passed on the information that everyone would be meeting at Vamoma where we had been meeting the previous two days before going out to march.
On August 27th, 2020, I was one of the first people to arrive at Vamoma along with a friend who is a journalist, Joseph, who had also been covering the protest while also marching with us the previous two days. To our utmost surprise, we saw police officers at Vamoma dressed in their full police uniforms with riot gear that included guns, shields, batons, tear gas, pepper spray, handcuffs, etc., and were telling us and the others who were at the place to leave because they had orders from the government to stop anyone from gathering for a protest that day. So, we told the others that we should leave from there and assemble at a new point at Fish market to move forward with the march as planned. While trying to leave the scene, I had heard the commander at the time give orders saying, and I quote, “If they don’t want to leave, arrest and put all of them in handcuffs.” While we were trying to leave, the LNP officers began manhandling people, pushing them away, and even made attempts to arrest some people. However, we managed to get everyone to leave and we assembled at Fish Market. While there and making arrangements for our march to begin, we saw the LNP officers arrive on the scene again with the same gears as before. In my mind, I asked myself, ‘’Why would police officers need guns, etc. just because peaceful protesters had gathered to seek redress from their government which is their constitutional rights’’.
While trying to engage the police peacefully and make them understand that we had left the initial gathering point based on their orders and had gathered at that new point peacefully to continue with our march which was our constitutional right, the LNP officers started to again run behind the group that had assembled and started manhandling some of them. While this was going on, my journalist friend, Joseph, and another lady had been recording the incidents on their phones and were going Live on Facebook for everyone to see and be witness to the police brutality and violation of our civil rights. Before we knew it, a police officer instructed that Joseph be arrested for no reason, and in no time, Joseph was being manhandled by police officers and they were attempting to arrest him and take him away. Joseph, being fully aware of his rights, refused to go and resisted the arrest on grounds that they didn’t read him his rights or had any justifiable reasons for arresting as he had done nothing wrong. While that was going on and we were trying to handle the situation, a police officer seized the phone of the lady that had been recording the human rights violation for no reason and refused to give it back. This was a gross violation of Article 21b of the 1986 Constitution which states, “No one shall be subject to search or seizure of his person or property, whether on a criminal charge or for any other purpose, unless upon warrant lawfully issued upon probable cause supported by a solemn oath or affirmation, specifically identifying the person or place to be searched and stating the object of the search; provided, however, that a search or seizure shall be permissible without a search warrant where the arresting authorities act during the commission of a crime or in hot pursuit of a person who has committed a crime.”
The courageous lady had to threaten to remove all of her clothes in protest if her phone wasn’t returned, and as she began actually removing her clothes before the police officers saw reason to give her phone back to her. While that was going on, we had managed to prevent Joseph from being arrested. Again, the police officers started to run behind the protesters refusing to allow them to assemble again which was also a gross violation of Article 17 of the Liberian Constitution. So, we decided that since all these civil and human rights violations were being done by the police officers, it was prudent that we march to the embassy of the United States of America (USA) and make an official statement outlining the gross civil and human rights violations we had been faced with while also letting the USA and international community know about what was going on in the country as it relates to the rape pandemic. So, we and the other protesters set out to march straight to the US embassy at Mamba Point, Central Monrovia. The police officers prevented us from using the main road so we took the back route of the Airfield shortcut and continued to make our way with the hope of reaching Mamba Point to make our case to the international community. Before we knew it, the police officers who had initially just been walking along with us in order to prevent us from using the main route to town had received orders to disperse our group and started to run behind us. Some protesters were beaten with batons, pepper-sprayed, manhandled, and yet we kept moving on as we decided to use the route of the communities to still make our way to town to make our case no matter what, but that wasn’t enough for the police officers. They had not had enough of the police brutality for the day, so they then proceeded to throw tear gas amongst us – an innocent, harmless group of Liberians who were just making use of their constitutional rights to assemble, who also deserved to be fully protected by the very same police officers that were harming us according to our very own constitution. I had been to so many other protests before but it was the first time I had experienced the effect of tear gas. My eyes got red as I struggled to breathe and gasped for air, others who could not stand it fainted, and yet, the police officers still continued to chase us in the communities, beat people with their batons, arrest and handcuff some of the protesters and violate our human and civil rights with no remorse. In the end, amidst the police brutality, getting beaten, pepper-sprayed, tear-gassed, etc, some of us made it to town and delivered our statement at the US Embassy.
Now, I would like to show you how the police actions that day violated so many international laws and norms that our country, Liberia, is a signatory to.
Firstly, less-lethal does not mean nonlethal. To be lawful under international norms, the use of less-lethal weapons — as in the use of tear gas — must be restricted to situations of necessity and in proportion to the associated risks. In other words, the force used must be the very minimum required under the circumstances at hand. Yet, the police officers failed to judge the circumstances appropriately and used tear gas on innocent protesters who showed no signs of violence or threats, thereby violating their human and constitutional rights.
Secondly, under international law, any use of force by a country’s police force that exceeds what is necessary and proportionate is deemed an attack on human dignity and therefore a human rights violation. Indeed, concerns about cavalier use of less-lethal weapons are also so high around the world that U.N. special rapporteurs have warned repeatedly against their unlawful use and the U.N. human rights agency has found it necessary to issue just this year guidelines on their use. The guidelines referred to as the ‘’United Nations Human Rights Guidelines on the use of less-lethal weapons in Law Enforcement’’ was formally launched in Geneva on 25 October 2019 during the 127th session of the Human Rights Committee.
The Guideline is based on international law, in particular international human rights law and law enforcement rules, as well as good law enforcement practice. It was created to assist in the application and implementation of international human rights law, especially those pertaining to the rights to life, to freedom from torture or other forms of cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment, to the security of person, and to the right of peaceful assembly. It supplements and complements the standards laid down in the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (Code of Conduct) and the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (Basic Principles). Considering that Liberia is a member of the UN and a signatory to the UN Charter, it is mandatory that its police officers follow the guidelines created under international law, but as clearly detailed in the previous paragraphs, the police officers ignored all the national and international laws and went on to brutalize and violate the human and civil rights of peaceful, harmless and innocent protesters.
Our police officers have violated, and continue to violate, these national and international laws when dealing with peaceful protesters which was recently on display again during the #BringBackOurBoys protest where, again, the police brutalized and violated the human and civil rights of peaceful protesters.
Police Brutality is on the rise in Liberia and if nothing is done, we may see police officers elevate their game and use live bullets on peaceful protesters in time to come. The time is now to speak out and do something about it and it requires a collective effort from every one of us.
‘’We are not Anti-Police. We are anti-police brutality’’. Al Sharpton
Authored by Darcess Dossen
Featured picture by Voice of America
