BRUSSELS: A French weapons firm has acknowledged for the first time that it has sold stun-guns to Senegal, where they have been reportedly used against journalists covering football matches and political protests.

At least twice during 2008 Senegalese reporters complained that they were attacked by police clutching tasers – electronic devices that can immobilise the person at whom they are aimed.

Although their manufacturers claim they are non-lethal, the human rights group Amnesty International published a report last month stating that 334 people died after being struck with them in the US between 2001 and August 2008. Tasers deliver a high-voltage shock that disrupts the body’s central nervous system and causes muscle contractions.

Antoine Di Zazzo, chief executive of Taser France, admitted to IPS that his company had sold 16 weapons to Senegal more than a year ago.

Di Zazzo said that the weapons were destined for Senegalese troops taking part in peacekeeping operations in Darfur, Sudan. Those who had reported seeing stun-guns in the hands of Senegalese police confused them for “electric truncheons, which are extremely dangerous,” he claimed.

Despite insisting that the police in Senegal are not equipped with his company’s products, Di Zazzo said that Taser does not attach any conditions to the sale of its goods, other than that security personnel due to use them receive special training. Although Taser France concluded the deal to sell weapons to Senegal, Di Zazzo said that the delivery was undertaken by its parent company in the US. Under European Union rules covering the trade in items that can be used for torture, Taser would still need a specific licence from the French government to sell its equipment abroad. While Di Zazzo stated that such licences had been obtained, a spokesman for Amnesty’s Paris office said it had received assurances that Taser France was only supplying the domestic French market.

“Taser has always said it hasn’t exported to Africa, so I’m really surprised to hear it now say that it has,” said Christophe Saint-Martin, a campaigner on arms trade issues with Amnesty.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based organisation monitoring press freedom worldwide, protested to the Senegalese authorities about the reported use of Tasers last year.

In March, Ousmane Mangane, a reporter with the privately owned channel Walf TV, said that riot police had used tasers on him while he was trying to interview a member of parliament during a demonstration against rising food prices in the Senegalese capital, Dakar.

And in June, Babacar Kambel Dieng from Radio Futurs Médias (RFM) and Kara Thioune from West Africa Democracy Radio stated that plainclothes police officers used the devices against them. Both were reporting on an international soccer match between Senegal and Liberia at the time.

Within France, Taser has been embroiled in a legal dispute with a prominent left-wing politician. Olivier Besancenot, leader of the Communist Revolutionary League party, has been sued for defamation after protesting at the acquisition of tasers by the French police. Some 4,500 of these guns have been made available in France.

The case against Besancenot took a new twist in October when Di Zazzo was arrested over allegations that he had hired a private detective firm to monitor Besancenot’s activities. Six police officers, two customs officials and two private detectives were detained as part of a probe launched in May after a magazine article alleged that the politician was being spied on.

Amnesty, meanwhile, has been urging that the EU should invoke its regulations on the torture trade in order to suspend the exports of tasers, at least until they are proven safe by a rigorous and independent inquiry. Evidence already amassed indicates that tasers are easily open to abuse, says the organisation. In 90 per cent of deaths linked to these weapons in the US, the person in question was unarmed and did not appear to pose a security risk, its report stated.

A little-known EU committee monitoring the implementation of the torture trade rules, which came into effect in 2006, has held one of its infrequent meetings in the past week. Brussels officials say that the body discussed whether the list of products covered by the rules should be lengthened. Human rights groups have documented how some of the most notorious tools used by torturers – such as a baton with spikes known as a sting stick and ropes designed for executions – are not covered by it.

An official said that this week’s discussions had been inconclusive and that a follow-up meeting is likely to take place in the summer. “NGOs (non-governmental organisations) are clearly bringing pressure to bear for more items (to be listed),” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added. “On the other hand, I should imagine that industry would not be quite thrilled that almost everything can be caught under anti-torture legislation.”—Dawn/IPS News Service