Tag Archives: Tear Gas

Connecticut may become first U.S. state to allow deadly police drones

By Barbara Goldberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Connecticut would become the first U.S. state to allow law enforcement agencies to use drones equipped with deadly weapons if a bill opposed by civil libertarians becomes law.

The legislation, approved overwhelmingly by the state legislature’s judiciary committee on Wednesday, would ban so-called weaponized drones in the state but exempts agencies involved in law enforcement. It now goes to the House of Representatives for consideration.

The legislation was introduced as a complete ban on weaponized drones but just before the committee vote it was amended to exclude police from the restriction.

Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, was reviewing the proposal, “however in previous years he has not supported this concept,” spokesman Chris Collibee wrote in an email.

Civil libertarians and civil rights activists are lobbying to restore the bill to its original language before the full House vote.

“Data shows police force is disproportionately used on minority communities, and we believe that armed drones would be used in urban centers and on minority communities,” said David McGuire, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Connecticut.

“That’s not the kind of precedent we want to set here,” McGuire said of the prospect that Connecticut would become the first state to allow police to use lethally armed drones.

In 2015, North Dakota became the first state to permit law enforcement agencies to use armed drones but limited them to “less than lethal” weapons such as tear gas and pepper spray.

So far, 36 states have enacted laws restricting drones and an additional four states have adopted drone limits, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

If Connecticut’s Democratic-controlled House passes the bill it will move to the Senate, which is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

Representative William Tong, a Democrat from Stamford, nor Senator John Kissel, a Republican from Enfield, who are co-chairs of the Judiciary Committee, were not immediately available for comment.

(Editing by Frank McGurty and James Dalgleish)

Macedonian Police Fire Tear Gas on Migrants

Men try to break a border security fence during scuffles between Macedonian police and migrants and refugees near a makeshift camp at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idome

IDOMENI, Greece (Reuters) – Macedonian police fired tear gas on Wednesday to disperse around 50 migrants stranded in Greece who tried to pull down part of the razor wire fence separating the two countries, a Reuters witness said.

Scuffles briefly broke out and Greek riot police later intervened to break up the crowd.

Tensions have boiled over at the makeshift migrant camp near the town of Idomeni, where more than 10,000 migrants and refugees have been stranded since February, when Balkan countries shut their borders to anyone wanting to head north.

Hundreds of migrants were injured on Sunday in clashes with Macedonian police, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets after a group tried to storm the border.

The Balkan route was the preferred gateway into western and northern Europe last year for around 1 million migrants from the Middle East and beyond.

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov and his Slovenian and Croatian counterparts, Borut Pahor and Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, later on Wednesday visited a migrant transit center just inside Macedonia, which houses 135 migrants trapped by the border closures.

After meeting some of the Croatian and Slovenian police who are helping to guard the Macedonian border, Ivanov said his country’s authorities would keep the migrant route closed in line with EU policies.

“The latest incidents on the border showed there is a great pressure from the migrants to re-open this corridor, but … we will respect that decision,” he told reporters.

(Reporting by Stoyan Nenov, Kole Casule and Aleksandar Vasovic; editing by Richard Balmforth)

UNHCR condemns tear gas against refugees

A migrant catches his breath after inhaling teargas thrown by Macedonian police on a crowd of more than 500 refugees and migrants protesting next to a border fence at a makeshift camp at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR condemned on Monday the use of tear gas by Macedonian police against refugees on the border with Greece and said such action damaged Europe’s image.

Dozens of migrants and refugees were wounded on Sunday when Macedonian police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at crowds on the Greek side of the border, aid workers said, an act Athens called “dangerous and deplorable”.

“Time and again in recent months we have seen tension unfolding at various European borders, between security forces on the one hand and people fleeing war and in need of help on the other,” UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said in a statement.

“People get hurt and property is damaged. Harm is done to perceptions of refugees and to Europe’s image alike. Everyone loses.”

About 11,000 migrants and refugees have been stranded at the Greek border outpost of Idomeni since February after a cascade of border shutdowns across the Balkans closed off their route to central and western Europe. They have been sleeping for many weeks in the open in dismal conditions.

Edwards said it was urgent to move people voluntarily to sites being put in place by the Greek government, a process that UNHCR was willing to help with.

A wider solution, a plan to relocate 160,000 people across Europe, was agreed many months ago but has still not been put into action, he said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Migrants Clash with Hungarian Police at Border

Hungarian police have used tear gas and water cannons to drive Syrian migrants away from the now closed Hungarian-Serbian border.

The migrants responded by throwing rocks, bottles and other projectiles at the police.

The Hungarian government closed the border on Tuesday and made it illegal to either enter the country or to damage the new razor-wire fencing at the border.  Serbia’s foreign ministry said that Hungary has actually closed the main border crossing between the two nations for 30 days.

Hungary also announced the fact-tracking of trials for migrants who have been arrested for illegally entering the nation.

Serbia has protested the firing of tear gas into their territory.

The same time that Hungary has shut down the borders of their nation, Croatia has said they will allow migrants to cross through their land to make their way to other EU nations.

“We heard that Hungary was closed so the police told us we should come this way,” Amadou, 35, from Mauritania told AFP news agency.  “We don’t know what we should do now. Do we have to catch a boat?”

The EU’s border agency says the total number of migrants entering their borders has passed 500,000.  Only 280,000 entered the EU throughout all of 2014.

A plan championed by Germany to force all members of the EU to take a certain amount of migrants or pay financial penalties collapsed after arguments within the EU leadership.

Bahrain Weaponizing Tear Gas

The US-based rights group Physicians for Human Rights is claiming the government of Bahrain is weaponizing tear gas in an attempt to quell protests in the nation.

Activists in Bahrain say 30 people have been killed as a result of the specialized tear gas. Many more have been injured, maimed or blinded by toxic chemicals inside the canisters. Continue reading →