Facing Tear Gas

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