A Gezi Park protester named Mehmet İstif has tongue cancer because of
excessive pepper gas used by police forces. Mehmet İstif, who is a software expert, joined Gezi Park protests in Mersin on 20 June 2013. According to Mr. İstif, a police officer who was carrying a pepper gas tank on his back,sprayed gas on his face from 40 centimeters. Mr. İstif’s mouth was filled with gas and tongue was burnt because of pepper gas. After a series of examinations in hospital, he had an operation. Later, doctors realized that he had tongue cancer. Now he is having chemotherapy and radiotherapy and is unable to speak. Mehmet İstif is communicating with other people by writing his words on a piece of paper. His mother doesn’t know how to read and write and therefore cannot communicate with his son. She says that “We don’t want any help or support from the government. They are the ones who did this to my son. All I want from police is to stop using pepper gas. We don’t want them to ruin lives of young people. We will seek for justice in the court."
Facing Tear Gas is a storytelling project of the War Resisters League by and for people that have experienced tear gas all over the world. SHARE YOUR STORY WITH US. Help us build our campaign against the use of tear gas and related chemical weapons and the militarization of police in our communities, and visit the full campaign website here. For updates on the campaign: Sign-up for tear gas campaign updates and action alerts, Like us on Facebook, and Follow us on Twitter.
In the course of my job I spend a fair bit of time in a Philadelphia public high school, which takes its name from a frequently commodified and de-radicalized civil rights leader. The halls of this high school are patrolled by numerous guards in uniform and plain clothes, and the frequent Public Service announcements alternate between authoritarian threats and pleading bribes for "good behavior". In the short time I have spent there, I've seen three students taken away in hand cuffs, often after a physical struggle with multiple adults. The relevant incident occurred less than a month ago while I was waiting with a cart for the elevator. There were loud noises and students came pouring out of a nearby door followed by a caustic smell. There was shouting while the students stood in the hall, then a uniformed officer followed them through the door and the students bolted down the hall away from her. There were sufficient numbers who were panicked that they knocked over my cart of books and fell on each other in an effort to get away. The officer was holding a student with one hand whose eyes were streaming. In the other hand she held a chemical spray container that she pointed at the students. I have been exposed to both tear gas and pepper spray in the past and could not tell you which this was, but even through peripheral contact I could feel my eyes begin to water and my throat burn. I have no idea what the student's alleged infraction was, nor do I care. Schools are where we young people go to learn. We should be ashamed that students caught in the school-to-prison pipeline are learning what it means to face chemical weapons. We should be many times more ashamed if we let that pipeline take them to a prison cell where they will face the same weapons in routine cell extractions.- Owen
Tahrir square, Jan 25th, 2013. Me and my parents were protesting against the new ‘religious’ regime ruled by Morsi. All of a sudden, we heard screams from several areas around us and people running away from an unknown attack. We couldnt tell what it was till we felt sharp burns through our respiratory system, we coughed so hard and we didnt know that we had to run so fast. It was strange, the gas was colorless, and no warning sound was heard before the bomb was released. Young men and women found it easier to run to fresh air and catch breath. But me while tied to 2 old parents we were unable to run fast, in a few seconds we almost lost our sight and consciousnesses, burning in our eyes, faces and throat. I fell on the ground spitting liquids and trying stick to my parents. But looking behind me I couldn’t find them anymore. A life saver made me breath some vinegar vapor, somehow it worked and came back to life after i almost thought it’s my end. And thankfully later, I discovered my parents were saved in the same manner. This gas has a killing effect for us. Please help us STOP getting gas into our cities.- Mohammed
In the Northwest of France, about 20km NW of the city of Nantes, there is a community in struggle near the town of Notre-Dame-des-Landes against a new airport and motorway. The locals there have been resisting the project in an area already home to numerous airports for about forty years. It's somewhat of a pet project of a guy called Jean-Marc Ayrault, once mayor of Nantes, who is of late the prime minister of France.
Since 2009, there have been people moving in from all over to occupy empty houses and terrains owned by the local authorities and then by Vinci, the contractor for the airport. At times there were around 30 separate terrains, forests, fields, or houses squatted and occupied against the project, while also creating spaces for collective living, with gardening, and self-built houses, bike workshops, etc...
The place has been occupied by the French military since mid-October, when they began "Opération César" in an attempt to clear the area (about 10km squared) of opponents to the project, who have responded with a fierce resistance, despite the systematic destruction of homes and equally fierce police brutality.
The week of 23 November last, a group of people occupied a woodland on the site that had already been evicted three times, building treehouses and structures on the ground, as well as putting up nets and other structures in the trees where we could live and resist any more eviction attempts. On the weekend of 23, the police returned in strength, along with workers and machines, to attempt to evict the forest again.
I spent two days and nights in a tree, while battle raged in other parts
of the forest and in areas outside of it, between protestors and police,
listening to the explosions of concussion grenades, rubber bullets and, of course, tear gas. High up in an oak, we were unable to flee the noxious clouds like our comrades on the ground (many of whom were prepared, with gas masks or, at least, scarves and lemon juice). We who were up high, sat and watched oncoming clouds of teargas and braced ourselves, and with scarves and lemon juice suffered through it until it passed on, only to be hit by more immediately. There was a feeling of powerlessness, being in this position, for there was really nothing else to be done, but to suffer through it. My lungs burned, my eyes flooded with tears, and I had difficulty breathing, but nowhere to go. This, throughout two days and nights.
On the ground, people fought with the police, with various projectiles and fireworks, all really nothing compared to these heavily-armoured servants of corporate interest, armed to the teeth with these humanitarian weapons of crowd control.
I had trouble thinking about how it went for the birds of the forest,
between the tear gas and the concussion grenades. - Camille
I was gassed with CS gas in Tahrir Square on November 23, 2011. Blindness, skin on fire, utter panic. Down with SCAF, Down with the Police State, Justice for the Martyrs of the Revolution. - Samah
This is a story from Cora, who was tear gassed as a part of a U.S. student delegation to Chile during the summer of 2012. The protest was for the re-nationalization of copper in support of education. Student protests have swept Chile over the past year, known at first as the “Chilean Winter.” The protests are against the privatized education system in place in Chile and will continue, as students demand a free public education for everyone.
I was in Denver in October 2011 when riot police were destroying the Occupy camp. A crowd of us were trying to rescue food, beds, and medical supplies; suddenly an officer fired rubber bullets at a kid videotaping from a tree, then they tear gassed us, peaceful men, women, and children. I saw a lady on the ground screaming and holding her eyes, everyone was stampeding and shrieking and it was impossible to breathe. They destroyed the food and supplies. - Dave
...I had met some of the people responsible for the communications systems at Ruckus, and thought I might lend a hand setting up communications for the event. I trained with the communications teams, and was one of the groups that checked out walkie talkies to help on the days of the events. Our training was strict. Contrary to popular myth, we did not use the communications systems to direct the protests, or call for blockades of particular intersections, and so on. The role of the communications team was to hang back, observe the events, and notify legal, medics, and independent media of situations needing their attention. Small affinity groups used smaller walkie talkies inside their groups to communicate from one end of a small action to another, but most of the co-ordination was done in the days leading up to the protests in big open meetings. The actual plans of each affinity group covering a "pie slice" were a secret known only to that affinity group, and they did not change much based on external information. Each group was responsible for somehow stopping all traffic from the convention center, by whatever means they chose which were kept secret from the overall organizers. This made us much more immune to rumors and bad information and contributed to the success of the actions. Even though the police could sneak a number of WTO delegates in through a weak link in our pie slice blockades, the event was so big that momentary breaches of our lines would still not allow enough of the delegates to get in for the conference to go on with business as usual. And there were plenty of people not committed to any particular blockade, who could step in and defend an intersection if the original blockade was broken.
...My friend Joan and I started out with a crew of about ten people carrying the umbrella and suitcase transmitter, and several carrying boom boxes. We started to walk around the perimeter, visiting different blockades with our goofy radio setup. Our programming left a bit to be desired, limited to running commentary as we walked along, interviews with random people passing by, and a bit of music. Our “show” probably broadcast for 3 or 4 blocks, though if we got to a high point we probably could have gone further, if anyone knew to listen. The first few hours were pretty fun, but by noon or so it became clear that the day was going to be more than we bargained for...
The police had started tear gassing in several places, and using beatings and direct applications of pepper spray to the seated blockaders. They were also starting to charge our lines. We put away the transmitter because no one would hear it in this chaos. We continued to make a circuit around the convention center. Joan and I joined newly forming blockades then leaving to help seed the next promising intersection ten or fifteen minutes later, once our forces seemed to have the intersection under our control.
Everything I saw on the part of the blockades on Tuesday morning was entirely non-violent, and this held up under a brutal police assault. We saw a lot more of it than many people, because over the course of the day we walked all the way around the perimeter, stopping wherever it seemed we could lend a hand. Our lines often held for quite a while, or they would be broken and quickly form back up as soon as the police moved on. Starting in the afternoon, I saw more people begin to fight back. As the tear gas canisters came down, people began to throw them back...
The under-told story of Seattle (lost in the window smashing anarchist controversy) is the immensity and effectiveness of the blockades. Many people focus on the glass smashing and the battles, but the simple fact was that many delegates could not get through the people's blockades. Often the blockades were three people deep and probably a hundred people across, running from one side of the street to the other, anchored to the buildings on each side. They were simply impassable without resorting to violence. And they were at every intersection for a circumference of perhaps 30 blocks. Some were bigger than others. In smaller areas, it might just be 7 or 8 people blocking a narrow back staircase past a parking garage, and running up and blocking anyone who tried to pass. But a large number of the blockades involved hundreds of people linking arms. Since the police were not arresting much on Tuesday, just trying to disperse people - even if they blew past our lines people would join another blockade blocks away, or retake the intersection as the police re-deployed. -Pete Tridish
I first met my friend Trucker in 1970 at a rally against the Vietnam War. Our demo was going to start on the Berkeley campus and continue with a march down Telegraph Avenue. This was shortly after the National Guard and police had murdered six demonstrators at Kent State and Jackson State, so the mood was extremely tense. The Berkeley city government had denied us a permit to march and called in police reinforcements from Oakland. The Oakland cops had a reputation for brutality (based on their treatment of the black population), and we were expecting an ugly and possibly violent confrontation. Out of fear, many people decided not to march, but others of us argued that marching was now more important than ever. We needed to defy the government's attempts to scare us into silence.
After speeches and music in front of Sproul Hall, we marched off the campus and were met by a wall of police sealing off Telegraph Avenue. Some of our hard-cores in front tried to break through the barrier but were clubbed down. Cops began firing what looked liked shotguns, and people started screaming and running in panic, but it turned out to be tear gas.
A demonstrator wearing a biker helmet, swim goggles, and a cloth around his face picked up a gas canister with gloved hands and hurled it back at the police -- a classic scene of a brave individual defying tyranny. Inspired, I pulled off my old green beret that I'd been wearing and used it to protect my hands as I scooped up a hot canister and threw it back where it came from. I thought about all the grenades I'd thrown in Vietnam and felt much better about this one.
The peace marchers fell back, fleeing down side streets. Agonized from the tear gas, I sank to my knees, hacking convulsively. My eyes were seared, nose and throat raw, skin burning. Through the tears I saw the guy in the biker helmet approaching. He helped me off the street into a doorway and pulled out a first-aid kit. From a squeeze bottle he squirted glycerin water into my eyes and nose, helped me rinse my mouth and throat with regular water from a canteen, then rubbed moist baking soda under my eyes. He was firm but gentle, like a good combat medic. I saw the cloth around his face was a towel wet with vinegar to absorb some of the gas. This man was equipped.
As soon as I could walk better, we straggled away from the scene. The police strategy had worked: the march was broken up, scattered in all directions. We walked down to People's Park, angry, bitter, exhausted.
The park was full, and no cops dared to show, although they and other agents were probably there undercover. Joints were being passed around, and we got high. Smoking grass back then had an innocence to it that it hasn't had since. Cannabis helped us to abandon the death world we saw around us and resurrect our child-selves. Stoned people were learning to play again, singing, blowing giant iridescent soap bubbles, juggling pine cones, tossing Frisbees back and forth. But under it seethed a mood of defiance and rebellion. A statement in RAMPARTS magazine summed up our feelings: "Alienation is when your country is at war and you want the other side to win." But I would have spelled it a-lie-nation. A group of conga drummers were playing, and their furious, insistent beat seemed to herald a rising tidal wave of protest that would sweep the militarists out of power.
We didn't realize it at the time, but this wasn't the beginning of the wave but its crest, and in the next years it would dwindle down. But this was better than no wave at all. It didn't sink the ship of state, but it did slosh over the deck. And now a new one is rising that may go even higher.
The events of the day bonded Trucker and me as friends, and although our lives took different directions after that, we stayed in touch. Years ago he went totally underground, changing his identity and location, and since then all I've had for him is a webmail address. - William
I have SCD. After an evening with friends & while walking to my car, I inhaled tear gas. It was different from any other tear gas I was exposed to before. I fell to my knees, movement was difficult so was thinking. Had my friends not been around, I wouldn't have made it. I suffered headache, stomach ache, weak voice, and general bone-ache for the following days. - S. Hussain, 29 Years - Bahrain
I’m an anchor who works on Egyptian TV. I’m also from the city of Suez, the city of the first martyrs of the Egyptian revolution which has seen violent clashes between rebels and the police. Police have used expired tear gas to suppress and disperse the protests causing much harm among the demonstrators like burning eyes and facial injuries.
Injuries did not stop at the face though. We’ve also seen neurological injuries, with demonstrators spending days in treatment centers and some even killed by exposure to these types of serious toxins.
After last year’s late November severe tear gas repression on Mohammed Mahmoud St. in Cairo, my wife, officer of customs at Adabiya port, received a shipment coming from a U.S. port carrying three containers carrying tons of US-made tear gas for the Ministry of Interior. But she refused to deal with this deadly cargo, especially after she heard that I and four of her colleagues were standing in solidarity with her, declining to process the shipment.
Resistance still continues to prevent U.S. tear gas from killing Egyptians at the hands of their security forces. - Medhat
I will bet real money that no one will submit his or her tear gas experience from the army! Every recruit has one, just part of training. One day, with no warning at all, you are marched to a one-story building somewhere on your Basic Training base. You have your gas mask with you, but, then, you usually do, as part of the gear you are being taught to wear. You are given a very brief introduction to the training. You are sent inside this building, lined up around the walls, and told to put on your gas mask. Oh Yes! I almost forgot! “Your gas mask is one of the most sophisticated pieces of equipment you will ever have in the army!”
A sergeant starts a tear gas grenade spewing smoke in the enclosed, ever-shrinking space. The mask seems to work just fine, except for the distinct smell of the tear gas seeping in from the edges of the highly-advanced piece of army equipment you are being trained to use. Then, you are ordered to remove your gas mask – and that is where it becomes truly interesting. Of course you are overwhelmed by the smoke, the choking tear gas. You have to stand there, or fall down there, or go into a panic right there. Eventually, they let you out of the building, and you cough and choke and sometimes vomit – all from the effects of the tear gas. The effects of the tear gas take a long time to go away. The memory remains forever.
Tear gas is really nasty, but I can tell you from personal experience that it can’t be worse than a lethal chemical weapon loosed by stealth against you. - Thomas
On February 21 2010, while visiting my birth home town of Beit Sahour, outside of Bethlehem, I joined a group of clergy from various denominations as well as scores of citizens of Beit Sahour for a prayer vigil at a piece of land that was about to be confiscated by the Israelis. The property was under the Jordanian control prior to the 1967 war and was evacuated by the Israelis and given back to the City of Beit Sahour. The city had planned to build a children's hospital on it with the help of the United States government. Then the Israeli government decided to reclaim it.
While we were reciting the Lord's prayer, soldiers as well as police and border patrol descended on us and ordered us to leave. I pleaded with them to allow us to continue our prayer which they answered with tear gas as you can see in the clip above. - Mina
