June 17, 2022
The government has submitted a bill to the Majlis that would make it easier for security officers to fire their guns at protesters.
Current law says officers can fire their weapons only when they are facing a group that is shooting weapons. The bill, however, says the officers can shoot even if no one facing them is shooting; they just need to assume that someone in a crowd is armed.
The bill also states that no one shot by a security officer can any longer file a complaint against the officer.
It isn’t clear why the government is seeking a change in the law, since critics have said that officers have been told to shoot at large protests even when gunfire has not been heard from the crowd.
Shooting by officers appears to have become much more common in recent protests. In past decades, large demonstrations often saw no shooting at all. In the recent protests in the south over rising prices, shooting could be heard in videos posted on social media from the very first day of the protests in multiple cities.
