Pepper spray, in protests and on the borders alike, is often used as a means of cruelty, causing intense pain, temporary blindness, difficulty breathing, and potentially lasting physical damage. Testimonies report its excessive and often gratuitous use as a tool of humiliation and degradation.
He kept running, but he was reached by one of the officers who started beating him with his baton and he used pepper spray against him. He states: “The Hungarian officer used the pepper spray for 3 minutes on my eyes, I couldn’t see for 3 hours. While he was using it, humiliating me, he asked if it was good.”
– Respondent in Subotica
Whilst pepper spray is frequently used in various different police settings, its use is only lawful if it is not utilised as a degrading treatement (due to the protections of the European Convention on Human Rights) and if it is in line with international policing standards such as the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which states (in Article 4) that force can only be used when nonviolent means are exhausted, and always with restraint, minimal damage, and with respect to rights and dignity. Despite these obligations, testimonies such as the above one from Subotica demonstrate that pepper spray is used as a means of degradation.
