Shedding Democracy for Tears

The effects of using tear gas against democratic dissent are medically and politically problematic.




Shedding Democracy for Tears
By Dru Oja Jay


   When the meetings and were over at the Summit of the Americas in
   Quebec City last April, police had used [1]4,709 canisters of tear
   gas over a 72 hour period, effectively filling downtown with gas. A
   [2]month later, homes and other buildings in downtown were still
   contaminated by the gas, and [3]calls for a public inquiry had been
   [4]dismissed.
   
   Prime Minister Jean Chrétien [5]congratulated police for "conducting
   themselves in an exemplary manner", said their actions were
   "appropriate", and mentioned their "restraint" while noting that
   protestors "had the right to protest but we will not tolerate
   breaking the peace of the people...You have the right to speak but
   you have to respect the law." Other officials were more cautious,
   noting that Quebec had gone better than recent mass protests in
   Seattle and Washington DC as a result, or so the implication went,
   of the police's actions, not the protesters's.
   
   Chrétien's comments are curious, given that people who intend to do
   serious damage would have likely forseen the need for a gas mask.
   Conversely, being bombarded with tear gas was a strong impetus for
   many otherwise peaceful protesters to throw rocks. The tear gas did
   as much to break the "peace of the people" as any action on the part
   of protesters. Despite repeated condemnations of a "violent
   minority", the massive use of tear gas effectively assaulted
   thousands of peaceful protesters and peaceful residents. According
   to multiple eyewitnesses, medics who were treating tear gas victims
   were targeted by police. Additionally, the police raided a
   temporary, volunteer clinic space where injured protesters were
   being treated.
   
     [Police] marched everyone...in the alley (the decontamination
     space) out at gunpoint. This included many medics and their
     patients, even seriously injured ones. The cops forcibly removed
     all the protective gear from everyone, including gas masks,
     vinegar bandannas and any goggles, saying "No more protection for
     you guys!".
     They also took all the medical supplies and equipment that was in
     the alley or being carried by the medics. They then marched them,
     hands in the air and at gunpoint, out into the gas. They made
     them walk one way, then changed their minds and marched them
     another direction. My friend Sean said that one guy next to him
     was hit in the head with a rubber bullet, and the cops wouldn't
     allow him to stop and treat the person.
     (from [6]an account by Sara Ahronheim, a volunteer medic during
     the protests. I heard many identical firsthand accounts from
     people who had been in the clinic space when police drove them
     out.)
     
   Aside from the [7]rhetoric of politicians, the use of tear gas
   raises some serious health and human rights issues. The type of gas
   most often used by police to deter protests is
   o-chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile, often called "CS gas" or just
   "CS".
   
   CS gas, along with its relatives, CN and CR, consists of crystals
   which vaporize at high temperature. Technically, then, it's a spray,
   not a gas. CS irritates the skin, eyes and upper respiratory tract,
   causing severe discomfort, pain, or, in high concentrations,
   asphyxiation. Proponents of continued use of CS note that when "used
   properly" (i.e. outdoors, in low concentrations), it is effective in
   dispersing crowds without causing permanent damage.
   
   But these conclusions depend on the assumption that people are
   otherwise compelled to leave an area contaminated with gas, which
   is not always the case with urban protests. In Quebec City, for
   example, police fired tear gas canisters into a crowded staircase,
   where people could not easily leave. In other cases, passages were
   blockaded by police, making it easy to be trapped. Or, as the
   authors of an EU report mentioned below put it, "operational usage
   sometimes means individuals face additional punishment or even death
   if they seek to leave a contaminated zone." But forcing individuals
   to leave the "contaminated zone" is often precisely the point of
   deploying CS in the first place.
   
   A [8]survey of medical studies reveals that
     * CS is both [9]clastogenic and [10]mutagenic;
     * severe injury from exploding tear gas canisters is possible and
       has been documented;
     * CS has caused lethal toxic injury in documented cases.
       
   A European Union report on crowd control technologies (available
   [11]in pdf, [12]excerpted here) goes into greater detail, noting
   that extended exposure to CS can cause, in ordinary terms, "victims
   to die by drowning in their own lung fluids" and "[13]severe
   blistering". More simply, exposure to CS even in low concentrations
   raises blood pressure, which can be a serious risk to people over 30
   or those with heart conditions. CS is especially harmful to infants,
   of which there were many in the populated downtown area of Quebec.
   Outside of medical studies, protesters who've been exposed to CS
   have reported weakened immune systems for months after exposure, and
   women have experienced premature menstruation within hours of
   exposure.
   
   CS is not the only substance delivered by tear gas canisters.
   [14]Methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK), is used as a solvent for CS,
   which is normally in crystal form. MIBK has a number of [15]effects,
   including headaches, vomiting, and dizziness. It has not been
   established whether MIBK is carcinogenic.
   
   Asphyxiating gasses like CS are prohibited for military use by the
   1925 Geneva [16]protocol on chemical weapons. But you wouldn't know
   it given Chrétien's smug comments and the lack of concern shown by
   other governments which use CS. Indeed, the British and American
   governments asserted after signing the protocol that CS was not
   covered because it's "not harmful to man". CS was allowed for
   specific applications, such as dispersing rioting prisoners of war,
   later on, but it remains banned for offensive use.
   
   Gassing citizens, whether peacefully protesting or simply because
   they happen to live in the wrong place at the wrong time, is
   apparently a different matter altogether. Further, in war it's
   generally understood that medics and downed victims are not to be
   targeted; indeed, the [17]Geneva Convention forbids both. Medics and
   tear gas victims were intentionally gassed in Quebec. Dispersing a
   crowd might be within legally accepted uses of CS, but using it as
   an offensive weapon against passive crowds, peaceful protesters,
   medics, and injured people is not. Or so one might hope.
   
   The clear message sent by police actions in Quebec, then, is that
   even the most basic standards of conflict can be set aside when
   dealing with domestic protests. That governments feel compelled to
   be more civil in war than in confrontations with their own citizens
   is a grave sentiment indeed. Not only does it escalate the
   mistreatment of protesters, which, by most [18]indications, is being
   consolidated in Genoa, but has real health consequences, both for
   humans and for democracy.

References

   1. http://www.theexperiment.org/articles_printer.php?news_id=1311
   2. http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSQuebecSummit01/0522_homes-cp.html
   3. http://rrsp.canoe.ca/CNEWSQuebecSummit01/0522_summit2-cp.html
   4. http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSQuebecSummit01/0423_summit3-cp.html
   5. http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSQuebecSummit01/0422_summit-cp.html
   6. http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=38603
   7. http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSQuebecSummit01/0422_summit-cp.html
   8. http://www.zarc.com/english/tear_gases/jamateargastoxic.html
   9. http://www.graylab.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?clastogenic
  10. http://www.graylab.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?mutagenic
  11. http://www.europarl.eu.int/stoa/publi/pdf/99-14-01-a_en.pdf
  12. http://monkeyfist.com/cs-gas/eu_report.html
  13. http://monkeyfist.com/cs-gas/eu_report.html
  14. http://www.epa.gov/ngispgm3/iris/subst/0173.htm
  15. http://www.lakes-environmental.com/toxic/METHYL_ISOBUTYL_KETONE.HTML
  16. http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/geneva1.html
  17. http://www.asociety.com/geneva1.html
  18. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/abc/20010710/bs/g8summitantterrorism_010710_1.html


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Posted on Monkeyfist at http://monkeyfist.com/articles/765