<\/p>
When the meetings and were over at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City\r\nlast April, police had used 4,709\r\ncanisters of tear gas over a 72 hour period, effectively filling downtown\r\nwith gas. A month\r\nlater, homes and other buildings in downtown were still contaminated by the\r\ngas, and calls\r\nfor a public inquiry had been \r\ndismissed. <\/p>\r\n\r\n
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien \r\ncongratulated police for \"conducting themselves in an exemplary manner\",\r\nsaid their actions were \"appropriate\", and mentioned their \"restraint\" while\r\nnoting that protestors \"had the right to protest but we will not tolerate\r\nbreaking the peace of the people...You have the right to speak but you have to\r\nrespect the law.\" Other officials were more cautious, noting that Quebec had\r\ngone better than recent mass protests in Seattle and Washington DC as a\r\nresult<\/em>, or so the implication went, of the police's actions, not the\r\nprotesters's.<\/p>\r\n\r\n Chrétien's comments are curious, given that people who intend to do serious\r\ndamage would have likely forseen the need for a gas mask. Conversely, being\r\nbombarded with tear gas was a strong impetus for many otherwise peaceful\r\nprotesters to throw rocks. The tear gas did as much to break the \"peace of the\r\npeople\" as any action on the part of protesters. Despite repeated condemnations\r\nof a \"violent minority\", the massive use of tear gas effectively assaulted\r\nthousands of peaceful protesters and<\/em> peaceful residents. According to\r\nmultiple eyewitnesses, medics who were treating tear gas victims were targeted\r\nby police. Additionally, the police raided a temporary, volunteer clinic space\r\nwhere injured protesters were being treated.<\/p>\r\n\r\n [Police] marched everyone...in the alley (the decontamination\r\nspace) out at gunpoint. This included many medics and their patients, even\r\nseriously injured ones. The cops forcibly removed all the protective gear from\r\neveryone, including gas masks, vinegar bandannas and any goggles, saying \"No\r\nmore protection for you guys!\". Aside from the rhetoric\r\nof politicians, the use of tear gas raises some serious health and human rights\r\nissues. The type of gas most often used by police to deter protests is\r\no-chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile<\/strong>, often called \"CS gas\" or\r\njust \"CS\". <\/p>\r\n\r\n CS gas, along with its relatives, CN and CR, consists of crystals which\r\nvaporize at high temperature. Technically, then, it's a spray, not a gas. CS\r\nirritates the skin, eyes and upper respiratory tract, causing severe\r\ndiscomfort, pain, or, in high concentrations, asphyxiation. Proponents of\r\ncontinued use of CS note that when \"used properly\" (i.e. outdoors, in low\r\nconcentrations), it is effective in dispersing crowds without causing permanent\r\ndamage. <\/p>\r\n\r\n But these conclusions depend on the assumption that people are\r\notherwise<\/em> compelled to leave an area contaminated with gas, which is\r\nnot always the case with urban protests. In Quebec City, for example, police\r\nfired tear gas canisters into a crowded staircase, where people could not\r\neasily leave. In other cases, passages were blockaded by police, making it easy\r\nto be trapped. Or, as the authors of an EU report mentioned below put it,\r\n\"operational usage sometimes means individuals face additional punishment or\r\neven death if they seek to leave a contaminated zone.\" But forcing individuals\r\nto leave the \"contaminated zone\" is often precisely the point of deploying CS\r\nin the first place.<\/p>\r\n\r\n A survey of\r\nmedical studies reveals that\r\n\r\n<\/p> A European Union report on crowd control technologies (available in pdf,\r\nexcerpted here) goes\r\ninto greater detail, noting that extended exposure to CS can cause, in ordinary\r\nterms, \"victims to die by drowning in their own lung fluids\" and \"severe blistering\". More\r\nsimply, exposure to CS even in low concentrations raises blood pressure, which\r\ncan be a serious risk to people over 30 or those with heart conditions. CS is\r\nespecially harmful to infants, of which there were many in the populated\r\ndowntown area of Quebec. Outside of medical studies, protesters who've been\r\nexposed to CS have reported weakened immune systems for months after exposure,\r\nand women have experienced premature menstruation within hours of exposure.<\/p>\r\n\r\n CS is not the only substance delivered by tear gas canisters. Methyl isobutyl\r\nketone (MIBK), is used as a solvent for CS, which is normally in crystal\r\nform. MIBK has a number of \r\neffects, including headaches, vomiting, and dizziness. It has not been\r\nestablished whether MIBK is carcinogenic. <\/p>\r\n\r\n Asphyxiating gasses like CS are prohibited for military use by the 1925\r\nGeneva protocol on\r\nchemical weapons. But you wouldn't know it given Chrétien's smug comments\r\nand the lack of concern shown by other governments which use CS. Indeed, the\r\nBritish and American governments asserted after<\/em> signing the protocol\r\nthat CS was not covered because it's \"not harmful to man\". CS was allowed for\r\nspecific applications, such as dispersing rioting prisoners of war, later on,\r\nbut it remains banned for offensive use. <\/p>\r\n\r\n Gassing citizens, whether peacefully protesting or simply because they\r\nhappen to live in the wrong place at the wrong time, is apparently a different\r\nmatter altogether. Further, in war it's generally understood that medics and\r\ndowned victims are not to be targeted; indeed, the Geneva Convention forbids\r\nboth. Medics and tear gas victims were intentionally gassed in Quebec.\r\nDispersing a crowd might be within legally accepted uses of CS, but using it as\r\nan offensive weapon against passive crowds, peaceful protesters, medics, and\r\ninjured people is not. Or so one might hope. <\/p>\r\n\r\n The clear message sent by police actions in Quebec, then, is that even the\r\nmost basic standards of conflict can be set aside when dealing with domestic\r\nprotests. That governments feel compelled to be more civil in war than in\r\nconfrontations with their own citizens is a grave sentiment indeed. Not only\r\ndoes it escalate the mistreatment of protesters, which, by most \r\nindications, is being consolidated in Genoa, but has real health\r\n<\/p>\n","contact":"dojy@mta.ca","link":"http:\/\/www.monkeyfist.com","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"The effects of using tear gas against democratic dissent are medically and politically problematic.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/07\/shedding_d.html","filesize":"8.3 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/07\/8681.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}
They also took all the medical\r\nsupplies and equipment that was in the alley or being carried by the medics.\r\nThey then marched them, hands in the air and at gunpoint, out into the gas.\r\nThey made them walk one way, then changed their minds and marched them another\r\ndirection. My friend Sean said that one guy next to him was hit in the head\r\nwith a rubber bullet, and the cops wouldn't allow him to stop and treat the\r\nperson.
(from an account by\r\nSara Ahronheim, a volunteer medic during the protests. I heard many identical\r\nfirsthand accounts from people who had been in the clinic space when police\r\ndrove them out.) \r\n\r\n\r\n