The use of short thread on LRAD/DEW Directed Energy Weapons against peaceful Australian protestors likely violates the Geneva Convention and could therefore constitute a war crime since it is prohibited to use weapons which cause excessive suffering against civilians.
A spokesman for ACT Policing has confirmed that LRADs were deployed during the anti-vaccine protests.
Last weekend in Canberra the Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw complained that the grassroots movement against forced jabs were a “challenge” for law enforcement. Videos from the march show huge crowds rising up against their government’s dictates which is why pro-mandate government officials retaliated.
The police deployed long-range acoustic devices (LRADs), which transmit at high volumes and frequencies. Even if they are referred to as “non-lethal weapons”, Canberra protesters (including women and children) were badly burned by directed microwave energy beams, complaining of blisters on their faces, arms, and torsos. Concentrated microwave radiation can inflict painful burns on the skin from long distances away.
Protesters were also reporting feeling nauseous, and suffering from vertigo and dizziness – outcomes associated with acoustic crowd control weapons.
In the US it is known as “Active Denial technology”, developed expressly as a crowd-control weapon. Unveiled in 2001, these wavelengths heat the outer surface, penetrating only the surface of the skin. But this is deep enough to affect great pain and trigger the same reflex reaction as being scalded by hot tea. It has an effective range of several hundred meters and can be aimed very easily.
The manufacturer, Raytheon, actually built a miniature Active Denial system which appears to be the same one which the Australians have deployed. The Australian police purchased LRAD devices as early as 2016.
According to the Geneva Convention: “Parties to a conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare civilian population and property. Neither the civilian population as such nor civilian persons shall be the object of attack. Attacks shall be directed solely against military objectives.”
MP Craig Kelly has promised to set up a “Royal Commission into Police Misconduct and Criminality” to “establish as a matter of urgency […] the abuse of ‘sound weapons’ that Australian Police forces have acquired”.