By Cam McGrath
"CAIRO, Dec 18, 2011 (IPS) - Activists across the Middle East are reporting a mysterious toxin, possibly a banned nerve agent, in the thick clouds of tear gas used by security forces to suppress anti-government protests in recent months.
"I felt weak and dizzy for several days, and my hands wouldn’t stop shaking," recalls Mahmoud Hassan, an Egyptian marketing executive who was hospitalised last month after inhaling tear gas during a protest against military rule in Cairo. The gas used against protesters was many times stronger than that used by security forces during the 18-day uprising that toppled Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak in February, he insists.
"This wasn’t tear gas, it was something else," says Hassan. "It burned the skin and lungs, and we all fell to the ground shaking uncontrollably."
A similar gas is suspected of causing the deaths of at least eight civilians in Bahrain since February. In Yemen, doctors reported that anti-government protesters exposed to what appeared to be tear gas arrived at field hospitals paralysed, unconscious, or in convulsions. Routine treatments for tear gas exposure had no effect.
"We are seeing symptoms in the patient’s nerves, not in their respiratory systems. I’m 90 percent sure it’s nerve gas and not tear gas that was used," Dr. Sami Zaid, a physician at the Science and Technology Hospital in Sanaa, said in March.
Conventional tear gas is a white powder composed of ortho-chlorobenzylidene-malononitrile, commonly known as CS. The chemical was developed for crowd control in the 1950s, proving a more powerful irritant but less toxic than the chloroacetophenone (CN) series it has largely replaced.
It is unclear whether the numerous reports of a toxic incapacitating gas involve one chemical compound or manufacturer, or many. But the observed symptoms, whether in Cairo or Sanaa, are remarkably similar: a severe burning sensation on the skin and in the lungs, nausea, paralysis, convulsions, and in some cases, death.
Tear gas canisters recovered from protest sites in Arab cities bear markings of several different companies. Most of the canisters found near Cairo’s Tahrir Square after recent protests carried the manufacturing stamp of Combined Tactical Systems (CTS), an American firm that produces chemical irritants and smoke munitions for military and police forces around the world. Other CS canisters carried the markings of U.S.-based firm Federal Laboratories and British weapons manufacturer Chemring Defence.
"We think the CTS canisters are causing the strange symptoms (reported in Egypt)," says Sherif Azer of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR). "But we also found some canisters with no markings at all."
In contrast, most of the canisters recovered in Bahrain bear the markings of U.S. firm NonLethal Technologies. Federal Laboratories, CTS, Chemring, and French security firm SAE Alsetex also supplied tear gas to the Gulf Arab state in recent years. CTS is a leading supplier of riot control agents to the Yemeni government......"
"CAIRO, Dec 18, 2011 (IPS) - Activists across the Middle East are reporting a mysterious toxin, possibly a banned nerve agent, in the thick clouds of tear gas used by security forces to suppress anti-government protests in recent months.
"I felt weak and dizzy for several days, and my hands wouldn’t stop shaking," recalls Mahmoud Hassan, an Egyptian marketing executive who was hospitalised last month after inhaling tear gas during a protest against military rule in Cairo. The gas used against protesters was many times stronger than that used by security forces during the 18-day uprising that toppled Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak in February, he insists.
"This wasn’t tear gas, it was something else," says Hassan. "It burned the skin and lungs, and we all fell to the ground shaking uncontrollably."
A similar gas is suspected of causing the deaths of at least eight civilians in Bahrain since February. In Yemen, doctors reported that anti-government protesters exposed to what appeared to be tear gas arrived at field hospitals paralysed, unconscious, or in convulsions. Routine treatments for tear gas exposure had no effect.
"We are seeing symptoms in the patient’s nerves, not in their respiratory systems. I’m 90 percent sure it’s nerve gas and not tear gas that was used," Dr. Sami Zaid, a physician at the Science and Technology Hospital in Sanaa, said in March.
Conventional tear gas is a white powder composed of ortho-chlorobenzylidene-malononitrile, commonly known as CS. The chemical was developed for crowd control in the 1950s, proving a more powerful irritant but less toxic than the chloroacetophenone (CN) series it has largely replaced.
It is unclear whether the numerous reports of a toxic incapacitating gas involve one chemical compound or manufacturer, or many. But the observed symptoms, whether in Cairo or Sanaa, are remarkably similar: a severe burning sensation on the skin and in the lungs, nausea, paralysis, convulsions, and in some cases, death.
Tear gas canisters recovered from protest sites in Arab cities bear markings of several different companies. Most of the canisters found near Cairo’s Tahrir Square after recent protests carried the manufacturing stamp of Combined Tactical Systems (CTS), an American firm that produces chemical irritants and smoke munitions for military and police forces around the world. Other CS canisters carried the markings of U.S.-based firm Federal Laboratories and British weapons manufacturer Chemring Defence.
"We think the CTS canisters are causing the strange symptoms (reported in Egypt)," says Sherif Azer of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR). "But we also found some canisters with no markings at all."
In contrast, most of the canisters recovered in Bahrain bear the markings of U.S. firm NonLethal Technologies. Federal Laboratories, CTS, Chemring, and French security firm SAE Alsetex also supplied tear gas to the Gulf Arab state in recent years. CTS is a leading supplier of riot control agents to the Yemeni government......"
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