The director of Amnesty International (AI) Spain, Esteban Beltrán, raised this Tuesday the need to regulate at the regional level the use of electric guns or Tasers that several local police forces in Asturias have such as those in Oviedo, Avilés, Pola de Siero or Cangas de Onís.
This is one of the demands that Beltrán has conveyed to the president of the General Board of the Principality, Juan Cofiño, one of the authorities with whom he plans to meet throughout the day.
Tasers fire two darts that contain electrodes that are connected to the weapon through metal wires that conduct electrical charges that, when projected on a person, decontrol the motor muscles, incapacitating them.
Their use, as highlighted by the director of AI Spain, can be very dangerous for people with mental problems or other disabilities and their use should comply with international protocols “to use these weapons prudently”, something that in Asturias only the local police comply with. from Aviles.
The one in Oviedo, according to Beltrán, “especially fails to comply with all the rules for the use of Tasers” since, for example, it contemplates that several shocks can be given to a person when international protocols indicate that only one can be applied.
“Except for the one in Avilés, the rest do not follow international protocols,” stressed Beltrán, who highlighted that in Asturias he is not aware that they have yet been used by the agents who have them.
In any case, he has insisted that there must be “a regional protocol so that they do not pose a danger to citizens and police due to misuse.
Health expenditure
Another AI demand is to require an increase in health spending in Primary Care since, according to data from this organization, in Asturias it is 13 percent of the resources dedicated to public health when the World Health Organization Health (WHO) establishes that it should be 25 percent.
Between 2019 and 2022, according to AI data, people waiting more than 48 hours to be seen in this network for non-urgent cases has increased from 19 to 53 percent.
For Beltrán, at a time when the budget debate is open for next year’s regional accounts, it must be considered whether Asturias is going to get closer to the 25 percent that the WHO recommends, whether it is going to reduce spending or leave to settle with small increments.
From 2009 to 2022, public health spending in Asturias was reduced by 5.4 percent and spending on Primary Care grew by 2.6 percent, according to the report that AI has prepared on public health throughout the country.
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