Crowd control weapons absent from Arms Trade Treaty – Photo Gallery of Weapons used against Peaceful Protesters in Bahrain

Crowd control weapons absent from Arms Trade Treaty
July 25, 2011 by Eric Stoner – Published by Waging Nonviolence

In the negotiations for the Arms Trade Treaty, which wrapped up earlier this month, one subject that was not clearly addressed was the sale of crowd control weapons—such as tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons and electric shock stun guns—that are regularly used in cracking down on peaceful protest. The problem is that the sale of these weapons is big money for many Western governments. As the Inter Press Services reports:

BCHR Photo Gallery Here These “less than lethal” weapons are easily abused as lethal weapons. Many Bahraini Protesters and Innocents caught in the deliberate lethal misuse of these weapons have been killed since the February Protests.

AI [Amnesty International] said it has identified U.S.-made tear gas canisters and solid rubber bullets, and French tear gas grenades and solid rubber dispersion grenades in the aftermath of the attacks on civilian demonstrators in the streets of Bahrain early this year.
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