Police kill man for refusing to pay bribes
A mechanic died violently in police custody in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, shortly after he refused to continue paying bribes. The police reportedly started extorting money from the victim after they seized the auto-rickshaw that he operated and the two men he hired to drive it. The man was delivered dead to a hospital shortly after police picked him up, bearing signs of torture. The hospital has refused to release his medical records. The case shows how Bangladeshi police are able to trade on justice, to arrest persons at will, and to kill with impunity. The wife and nephew of the dead man have been threatened repeatedly by the officers involved in the case.
http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2010/3502/
Thousands searched illegally in Britain
Thousands of people across the UK might have been stopped and searched illegally, figures released by the Home Office suggest. Powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act were used in "error" after the proper authorisations were not given. Section 44 allows police to stop and search someone without suspicion that an offence has occurred. Critics say the rules unfairly target some ethnic groups and increase community tensions.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/politics/10283701.stm
Inappropriate police action
In an action that was cleverly psychological, ice cream music was blasted through the loudspeakers of a Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) armored Land Rover after the patrol came under attack from about 15 teenagers last weekend on the Twinbrook estate on outskirts of west Belfast. The music stopped bottle-throwing teenagers. “An officer used the vehicle's loudspeaker system to play music to the youths in an effort to use humour to defuse the situation. The youths stopped throwing the bottles. However police accept that this was not an appropriate action. The officer has been spoken to by a senior officer in order to establish the circumstances of the incident.” “It was a very immature way for police to deal with a very serious problem,” said Sinn Fein councilor Angela Nelson. "I would have expected the PSNI to have a more mature outlook and not to come up and play ice cream tunes. Where in the world does a police service say that their way of dealing with anti-social behavior is through humour?”
Belarusian Gauntlet
Belarusian police violently dispersed the Slavic Gay Pride 2010 march in Minsk on Saturday. About 30 people taking part in the procession chanted slogans and carried rainbow flags. Riot police attacked the marchers and arrested more than ten people.
http://naviny.by/rubrics/english/2010/05/15/ic_articles_259_167819
"This is your receipt for your husband"
Moves to safeguard company trademarks and stamp out ambush marketing, to preserve the monopoly of official advertisers and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) logo, are raising concerns among civil liberty groups. Police will have powers to enter private homes and seize posters, and will be able to stop people carrying non-sponsor items to sporting events.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100303/tts-uk-olympics-london-ca02f96.html
New York police under pressure to make arrests
A New York police officer has revealed that police is under pressure to meet quotas. NYPD Officer Adil Polanco says obsession with keeping crime stats down has gotten out of control. He claims precinct commanders pressure cops on the street to make more arrests, and give out more summonses, all to show HQ they have a tight grip on their neighborhoods. "They have to meet a quota. One arrest and twenty summonses," said Polanco. In a recording, a precinct patrol supervisor appears to step up the pressure to write more and more summonses: "Next week, 25 and 1, 35 and 1, and until you decide to quit this job to go to work at a Pizza Hut, this is what you're going to be doing till then. Do you understand?" "We are stopping kids walking upstairs to their house, stopping kids going to the store. In order to keep the quota," said Polanco. Not making the quotas forces officers to give out bogus summonses. "I'm not going to keep arresting innocent people, I'm not going to keep searching people for no reason, I'm not going to keep writing people for no reason, I'm tired of this," he said.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators&id=7305356
