MEDIA ROOTS – Reporting From Outside Party Lines » egypt http://mediaroots.org Sat, 15 Jul 2023 22:24:49 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2 Internationally Banned Tear Gas: For Domestic Use Only http://mediaroots.org/internationally-banned-tear-gas-for-domestic-use-only/ http://mediaroots.org/internationally-banned-tear-gas-for-domestic-use-only/#comments Mon, 15 Dec 2014 01:35:50 +0000 http://www.mediaroots.org/?p=7170 Read More]]> Protester wearing a tear gas mask against background of the massAs unrest erupts from Oakland to Egypt, there’s one weapon of war that has come to define the militarized police state: tear gas.

And while a St. Louis judge ruled recently that limits must be placed on the use of tear gas in Ferguson, he didn’t rule that tear gas should only be implemented as a last resort.

Around the country, contingents of peaceful protesters are being confronted by assemblies of heavily militarized police officers that regularly use chemical agents to disperse crowds. But usually the act of getting doused with chemicals is so infuriating that it only incites chaos.

People have a good reason to be afraid of tear gas, considering it’s a banned agent of war under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Here’s the catch – there’s a clause in the treaty that includes an exception for domestic use. Yes, it’s illegal for the US military to use tear gas against ISIS, but cool to use against American citizens.

The US ensured the exception, claiming it was afraid the convention may prohibit lethal injection. Because of this caveat for riot control, countries around the world regularly and irresponsibly use chemical agents against their own populations. In American cities like Ferguson, police deploy tear gas at the drop of a hat, often at cameramen and journalists.

Despite all of the apocalyptic imagery associated with the weapon, government officials maintain tear gas is perfectly safe, including Ferguson police chief Tom Jackson, who said “There are complaints about the response from some people… but to me, nobody got hurt seriously, and I’m happy about that.”

He forgot to say yet, considering how Ferguson police are using tear gas canisters from the Cold War era and are so old, there’s a severe risk of shrapnel flying into crowds. Make no mistake, this “less than lethal” weapon can actually be quite deadly. Look no further than Palestine, where a man was killed from a tear gas canister hitting him at close range in 2011. Or in Egypt, when a policeman shot tear gas into a caravan holding  37 protesters, choking and killing them all.

Horrifyingly, tear gas also causes amputations and miscarriages. In Bahrain, Physicians for Human Rights reported that many pregnant women had miscarriages after exposure with the chemical agent. Officials assure there are no long term health effects, but that hasn’t been proven given the lack of long term studies. Sven-Eric Jordt, a leading expert in tear gas, says

“I frankly think that we don’t know much about the long-term effects, especially in civilian exposure…There’s very few follow-up studies. These are very active chemicals that can cause quite significant injury. I’m very concerned that, as use has increased, tear gas has been normalized. The attitude now is like, this is safe and we can use it as much as we want.”

And boy, do we. As the world’s leading military and arms supplier, the US is also the biggest producer of less than lethal weaponry. During Egypt’s revolution, while police gunned down protesters and made mass arrests, they liberally used tear gas that read “Made in the USA” (at a little place called Combined Systems International of Jamestown, Pennsylvania). According to VisionGain, the non-lethal weapons market has exploded over the last decade, and is worth a whopping 1.6 billion dollars this year.

Somehow the government has convinced the American people that using tear gas is perfectly harmless, despite stark evidence to the contrary. So, next time it tries to sell us another war because *this leader gasses his own people*, remember that claim isn’t so far from home.

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Abby Martin Breaks the Set on the Lethality of Tear Gas

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Abby Martin / @AbbyMartin

Photo by Wikimedia Commons

 

]]> http://mediaroots.org/internationally-banned-tear-gas-for-domestic-use-only/feed/ 0 Street Artists Continue to Chronicle Struggles in Egypt http://mediaroots.org/street-artists-continue-to-chronicle-struggles-in-egypt/ http://mediaroots.org/street-artists-continue-to-chronicle-struggles-in-egypt/#comments Tue, 09 Oct 2012 22:08:51 +0000 http://localhost/mediaroots/street-artists-continue-to-chronicle-struggles-in-egypt/ Read More]]>

MEDIA ROOTS – In Egypt, street art is quickly painted over and removed from public view. To combat this, photographers have recently teamed up with artists to compile collections for print publication.

Since the resignation of President Mubarak last year, artists’ dissent appears to have grown even more angry and primarily focuses frustrations toward newly elected President Morsi.

 “You are a regime that is frightened by paint brushes and pens,” read one verse recently displayed. “If you were doing the right thing, you would not be afraid of what’s painted.” The Muslim Brotherhood is also a target of the denunciation.

Wall Talk is the newly released collection of graffiti displayed in Egypt over much of the past two years and is now available for free download on Scribd.

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Ottawa Citizen – Wall Talk publisher Sherif Boraie says graffiti was the vehicle that delivered clear, strong and angry messages during the anti-Mubarak uprising and afterward. Now it reflects the depth of frustration over the perceived failure of the revolution to realize its main goals, he said.

“We are in a difficult period, and the youth are very angry, while avenues for expression for the mare limited. Will the anger continue to simmer indefinitely without boiling over? I don’t think so.”

To read more about how graffiti artists are creatively spreading information in Egypt, read the full article in today’s Ottawa Citizen.

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Image provided by Flickr user Gigi Ibrahim.

]]> http://mediaroots.org/street-artists-continue-to-chronicle-struggles-in-egypt/feed/ 1 US Sold $7 Billion in Arms to Libya and Egypt in 2009 http://mediaroots.org/us-sold-40-b-in-arms-sales-to-countries-including-libya-and-egypt-in-2009/ http://mediaroots.org/us-sold-40-b-in-arms-sales-to-countries-including-libya-and-egypt-in-2009/#comments Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:16:38 +0000 http://localhost/mediaroots/us-sold-40-b-in-arms-sales-to-countries-including-libya-and-egypt-in-2009/ Read More]]>

BUSINESS WEEK– The U.S. government approved $40 billion in worldwide private arms sales in 2009, including more than $7 billion to Mideast and North African nations that are struggling with political upheaval, the State Department reported.

From 2008 to 2009, the U.S. authorized increasing sales of military shipments to the now-toppled Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak and the embattled kingdom of Bahrain. But the U.S. reduced its defense sales approvals in 2009 to Moammar Gadhafi’s Libyan government, which is now under a blanket weapons ban imposed last month by the Obama administration.

The $40 billion figure during the first year of the Obama administration reflects a rise in total approved arms sales over the final year of the Bush administration in 2008, when the State Department licensed $34.2 billion.

The latest figures describe sales of military hardware from missile systems to bullets that the State Department authorizes from private U.S. defense companies to other countries. The figures do not include direct U.S. military aid to other nations, providing a limited snapshot of the ebb and flow of American arms abroad. The figures also detail only proposed sales — not actual shipments.

The new numbers issued in a report from State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls indicate that international sales sought by U.S. defense firms have surged in the last two years after holding steady for most of the 2000s in the range of $20 billion. And the report’s details show the willingness of the Obama administration, like preceding White Houses, to sometimes provide military and crowd-control weaponry to regimes with little popular support.


Photo by DCB Prime
]]> http://mediaroots.org/us-sold-40-b-in-arms-sales-to-countries-including-libya-and-egypt-in-2009/feed/ 0 Egypt’s Revolution: Puppet Dictators, Response & Coverage http://mediaroots.org/the-egyptian-revolution-puppet-dictators-us-response-coverage/ http://mediaroots.org/the-egyptian-revolution-puppet-dictators-us-response-coverage/#comments Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:32:22 +0000 http://localhost/mediaroots/the-egyptian-revolution-puppet-dictators-us-response-coverage/ Read More]]> Media Roots Radio- The Egyptian Revolution: US Response & Coverage by Media Roots

MEDIA ROOTS – This episode of Media Roots Radio covers Egypt’s Revolution: US puppet dictators, media coverage and response in this country compared to coverage during Iran’s “green revolution”, the causes of unrest and the tactics being used by Mubarak to stifle the revolution. Special guest Laurie Kircher comes on to weigh in on the subject during the broadcast.

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