The State

UFFC

How Forensic Architecture uses technology to protect human rights

Woman on Laptopsource: Computer Weekly
published: 24 January 2022

Forensic Architecture speaks to Computer Weekly about how it uses various digital technologies to investigate human rights abuses around the globe, including the pushback of migrants over the Greek border and the killing of Mark Duggan by London police.

From biometric identification technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) to communications interception equipment and unmanned surveillance drones, modern nation states have a vast array of immensely powerful tools at their disposal thanks to the corporations they partner with to develop and deploy such technologies.

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UFFC

Dalian Atkinson: PC Benjamin Monk jailed for ex-footballer’s death

Dalian Atkinson
Dalian Atkinson – Image credit http://www.swn.com

source: BBC News
published: 29 June 2021

A police officer who unlawfully killed Dalian Atkinson by tasering him to the ground and kicking him in the head has been jailed for eight years. PC Benjamin Monk, 43, discharged his taser three times and kicked him twice in the head, leaving bootlace prints on his forehead, his trial heard.

The former Aston Villa striker died after the 2016 stand-off outside his father’s home in Telford, Shropshire. Jurors cleared Monk of an alternative charge of murder on 23 June. He will serve two-thirds of his sentence before being entitled to release on licence.

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United Families & Friends Campaign

The Watchmen : State Violence in a Democracy

French Riot Policesource: Bella Caledonia
published: 4 April 2021

The role of the police in western society is beginning to be understood and challenged in ways that were inconceivable only a decade ago. The belief in ‘law and order’ and the infallibility of the police – or at least their role as a force for moral good in a system designed to uphold basic rights was deeply held.

But the deluge of state violence now routinely witnessed and shared has fatally undermined that belief system and exposed as being based on a set of myths. ‘Policing by consensus’ – the idea that you can only police a society if a level of good relations is maintained is under threat and new radical notions of abolishing the police system as we understand it are emerging.

How did this happen?
Police forces in the US and Europe work in different social contexts, with different histories and different gun laws, but for many years now people have witnessed and shared police violence and gained an insight into how they operate.

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