Police brutality by country
Notable cases of police brutality have occurred in various countries.
Africa
Uganda
Under President Idi Amin, many Ugandan people were killed, including minority groups. Many others were tortured.South Africa
Incidents of police brutality skyrocketed by 312% from 2011 to 2012 compared to 2001 to 2002, with only 1 in 100 cases leading to a conviction. There were also 720 deaths in police custody due to police action from 2011 to 2012.In 2015, as a result of police officers being accused of crimes such as rape, torture, and murder, the cost of civil liabilities claims were so great that there was concern the costs would strain the South African Police Service national budget. The police commissioner at the time, Riah Phiyega, blamed the large number of claims "on a highly litigious climate".
Police brutality has spread throughout Soweto. Nathaniel Julius was killed in Soweto by police officers from the El Dorado police station. He was a 16 year old boy with Down syndrome, and was shot because he didn't respond to the police officer calling him. This action was not warranted because Nathaniel didn't have any weapons on him and he was just walking from the store after buying biscuits. Two police officers were arrested over Julius' death on murder charges, after mass protests against this in the area. South African police are commonly accused of excessive force, with ten deaths attributed to police the same year.
Ethiopia
Egypt
Police brutality was a major contribution to the 2011 Egyptian revolution and Khaled Said's death, though little has changed since. One of the "demands" around which people decided to take to the streets in Egypt was "purging the Ministry of Interior" for its brutality and torture practices. After six months of reporting gang rape, a woman in Egypt is still seeking justice not only for herself, but also those who were witnesses in her favor and are jailed, tortured in pretrial custody. The lack of investigation into the Fairmont Hotel rape case of 2014 has also put the Egyptian authorities under condemnation. Reportedly, the prime witnesses of the case have been subjected to drug testing, virginity tests and publicly defamed, while their families suffer trauma.Mauritius
On the island state of Mauritius the Independent Police Complaints Commission was set up in April 2018 under the Independent Police Complaints Commission Act 2016. The IPCC was in fact a rebranding of the Police Complaints Commission, with exactly the same objectives, powers and its amenities remain at Emmanuel Anquetil Building in Port-Louis. It employed around 20 individuals at the time of its creation. IPCC's main objective is to investigate complaints of misconduct made against any officer of the Mauritius Police Force, including corruption, money laundering, death in custody and police brutality. However its critics point out that the IPCC is weakened due to political interference, especially the Prime Minister's Office in a similar manner that the ICAC became progressively powerless due to such interference.In June 2024 Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth reported that since its inception the IPCC had recorded 4229 complaints, leading to 2375 investigations, out of which 445 complaints were dropped. 48 cases have been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions and 17 cases had progressed to legal prosecution. IPCC has also suspended 1643 complaints due to insufficient evidence. From 2005 to 2009 the number of police brutality cases was 1149, but the number had dropped to only 257 from 2014 to 2024. Despite this apparent attenuation, cases of police brutality regularly make front page headlines in the local Mauritian press.
Notable cases of police brutality include the 1999 death in custody of singer Joseph Réginald Topize also known as Kaya, which led to the nationwide 1999 Mauritian riots. There is also the 1982 murder of Sylvio Suntoo and his pregnant girlfriend Patricia Muttur at Ratsitatane Road in Plaisance, Rose Hill during a violent police raid of Suntoo's home. Police tried in vain to mask these murders as suicide. More than 200 policemen were involved in the dawn raid as police mistakenly suspected that Sylvio Suntoo was involved in an armed hold-up at the Curepipe head office of CEB on 24 February 1982 during which a gangster shot dead police constable Jean Nelzire. But 8 years later in 1990 police revealed that Suntoo was innocent, as their investigation of a subsequent hold-up uncovered a gang based in the city of Port Louis as the true perpetrators of these armed hold-ups. As police commissioner Rajarai, his deputy Bhardwoze Juggernauth and assistant commissioners of police Cyril Huet, C. Nicolas and Ecosse Marcel took a keen interest in the case, a number of innocent citizens became victims of police brutality, including the Robertson couple and Clifford Esther.
Mozambique
Asia
Bangladesh
On February 21, 1952, in Dhaka, then part of East Pakistan, students from the University of Dhaka and Dhaka Medical College organized a demonstration to protest the decision to establish Urdu as the only state language. Despite the enforcement of Section 144, which banned public gatherings, the students assembled peacefully. However, police were ordered to disperse the crowd. This led to the use of tear gas and eventually live ammunition against the unarmed students. Several students, including Abdul Jabbar, Rafiq Uddin Ahmed, Abul Barkat, and Abdus Salam, were killed in the crackdown.In May 2017, a man named Shamim Reja was killed by police in the Sonargaon police station. The victim's father claimed that his son was tortured in the police station as the police wanted Bangladeshi Taka 600,000. Police investigated and the officer-in-charge Arup Torofar, SI Paltu Ghush, and ASP Uttam Prashad were found guilty as charged.
China
have occurred historically in China, notably with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Associations such as Falun Gong have objected against the Chinese Communist Party and which are dispersed by riot police. Chinese protesters have been able to systematize powerful group mobilizations with the use of social media and informal mass communication like Twitter and its Chinese counterparts Weibo. Human Rights Watch reported that police routinely torture and ill-treat detainees in pretrial detention, where "detainees have been forced to spend days shackled to 'tiger chairs,' hung by the wrists, and subjected to abuse by 'cell bosses'—fellow detainees overseeing cells on behalf of the police."Hong Kong SAR
During the 2014 Hong Kong protests, there were numerous instances of police brutality. Seven police officers were caught on video kicking and beating a prominent political activist who was already handcuffed. There had also been more than hundreds of incidents of police beating passers-by with batons. Pictures on local TV and social media show demonstrators being dragged behind police lines, circled by police officers so that onlookers' views were blocked, and in some cases, re-emerging with visible injuries. An officer-involved, retired police officer Frankly Chu King-wai was sentenced to three months in prison for causing serious bodily harm.During the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests which gained extensive international coverage, complaints of police brutality increased substantially and broke previous records of complaints.
Cases that have caused outrage include the police's mauling and intentional head-shooting of protesters by rubber bullets and rapid tear-gassing of a surrounded crowd. Numerous were critically wounded. Many Hong Kong citizens accuse the police of attempting to murder protesters to deter the people from exercising their freedom of expression.
Amnesty International released a report on 21 June 2019 denouncing the role of the Hong Kong police in the 12 June protest that ended up in bloodshed.
Several street conflicts continued in Hong Kong throughout July 2019. Instances of police striking journalists with batons to obstruct their live reporting have been filmed.
On the night of 31 August 2019, more than 200 riot police officers entered the Prince Edward MTR station and attacked suspects in a train compartment on the Tsuen Wan line with batons and pepper spray. Many suspects sustained head injuries.
East Timor
In the early morning of 18 November 2018, a off-duty police officer shot dead three young men at a house party in the capital of Dili, he and three other officers were arrested for the shooting. The shooting sparked mass demonstrations in the days following the shooting.Iran
In 1979, authorities stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held many of the workers hostage.The 2009 Iranian Presidential election protests over the victory of Mahmoud Ahmeninejad, the police and paramilitary forces used excessive force against protesters, injuring and killing many. Many detentions, injuries and deaths of protesters, including children, were also reported on the 2019-2020 protests.
In April 2018, a video showed a female member of Iran's morality police slapping a woman and wrestling her to the ground, for allegedly not complying with Iran's mandatory headscarf. The police's actions were widely condemned, including by Iran's vice-president for women's affairs, Masoumeh Ebtekar. Iran's interior ministry ordered an inquiry.
On September 13, 2022, Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman was detained by authorities. She was announced dead on September 16, 2022, allegedly due to cardiac arrest. However, it was likely due to injuries acquired due to the brutality she encountered. This incident sparked massive protests, and women burning the mandatory headscarf. The head of Tehran's morality police was later suspended.