ACTION ALERT: SEND E-MAILS NOW TO THE U.S. STATE DEPT
& THE TEAR GAS MANUFACTURER CSI
(No Longer Active)
UPDATE: February 16th, 2011
As of February 16th, 2011, 590 people have responded to this action alert by sending emails to the State Department calling on the US government to stop using US tax dollars to provide tear gas and other weapons, and to stop approving military sales to repressive governments like Egypt, Israel and Tunisia that use US equipment and weapons to deny basic human rights.
Also, 526 people have sent emails to Combined Systems Inc, Point Lookout Capital Partners and the Carlyle Group demanding that CSI stop providing tear gas that is used by repressive governments like Egypt, Tunisia and Israel to deny the right to protest.
Egyptians, Americans and people worldwide have been outraged in the last days by the photos, twitter messages and news articles showing that the tear gas canisters fired by Egyptian police at peaceful, pro-democracy protesters in Egypt are “Made in USA.” While we are seeing these pictures now from Egypt, we have seen similar ones in recent months from Tunisia and Palestine. All three places have had in common repressive governments, armed by US companies with tear gas and other weapons. All three have used extreme violence against unarmed protesters who were demanding basic human rights, maiming and even killing protesters with impunity.
In all three places, Combined Systems Inc., a US company based in Jamestown, Pennsylvania, is providing the tear gas - often under its brand-name CTS, an acronym for Combined Tactical Systems - that these governments are employing to crush protest, deny human rights and cling to power.
Israel, Egypt and Tunisia’s CSI tear gas may have been supplied under the US’s massive military aid to these governments, despite those governments’ clear records of severe human rights abuses. Israel receives $3 billion in US military aid annually, and the State Department approved the commercial sale of $1.85 million of "tear gases and riot control agents” to the Israeli government from 2007-2008. Egypt receives $1.3 billion in military aid annually, and Tunisia has received an average of around $15 million annually. At a minimum the US State Department has reviewed and approved the sale of US-made tear gas to those governments.
