The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

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  • Demonstrators rally outside Combined Tactical, Inc., a Greene Township manufacturer of "less-than-lethal" weapons such as tear gas and pepper spray that are used on protests here and abroad. Tom Davidson/Herald

    csi protest
January 17, 2012

Peaceful protesters

Say tear gas made here is killing people

By Lauren Mylo -----

JAMESTOWN — In keeping with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy of peaceful protests to achieve change, a group Monday targeted a Jamestown-area tear gas factory.

It was the second group to do so in as many months, but this group brought a personal touch.

Some of the protesters who marched Monday from the Jamestown Post Office to Combined Systems Inc. in Greene Township carried pictures of people they say were killed in foreign countries by canisters of Combined System’s non-lethal gas.

Najah Ahmed, a 45-year-old Palestinian who lives in Liberty Township, Trumbull County, held a sign picturing a woman who used to take care of Mrs. Ahmed’s grandmother in the Middle East.

The woman, Jawaher Abu Rahma, 36, died when she was caught in a large cloud of tear gas from a Combined System canister. She was attending a peaceful protest against the separation wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in on New Year’s Day 2011, Mrs. Ahmed said.

“Of course it was hard” for her family, Mrs. Ahmed said, but it was also a difficult time for Ms. Rahma’s family. Her brother, Bassem Abu Rahmah, had been killed the year before in a peaceful protest in his village.

“Because of that ... we want to stop them from making gas tears and sending them to Israel because their gas tears kill people.”

The manufacturer has provided the tear gas for law enforcement in Egypt and other countries, as well as to break up Occupy demonstrations in Oakland, Calif., and Denver.

Monday marked the second annual protest on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. About 25 people – only 15 marched – from the University of Pittsburgh’s Students for Justice in Palestine, the Arab-American Community Center in Youngstown and other groups gathered outside Combined.

Company workers driving in and out during the protest either ignored those standing in the cold with their signs or laughed. One driver honked her horn to clear the driveway so she could pull in.

Many standing in the cold said it was fitting to protest on a day that symbolizes the change activism can bring.

“Honor Dr. King and the right to protest oppression. Shame on you CSI,” one protester’s sign read.

A 20-year-old student from the University of Pittsburgh, Ryan Branagan, referenced one of King’s quotes: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

“I think now’s a good time, on Martin Luther King Day, to reflect on the connectivity of all things,” he said. “We need to stand up, we need to fight, because that’s what Martin Luther King Jr. would do.”

Karina Goulordava, 22, a senior at Pitt and the vice president of the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, said she went to Palestine in the summer of 2010 and was changed by what she saw.

She lived in a Palestinian refugee camp and ran from tear gas attacks during protests, she said.

“I was concerned by the conflict,” she said, noting when she returned to campus she joined the activist group.

“Not all of us can go to Palestine and protest there, but we all can come here,” she said.

Werner Lange, a retired Edinboro University professor who organized the protest, called for a moment of silence to remember those who have died in the last year from the tear gas.

He also delivered a “birthday present” at the end of the driveway to Jacob Kravel, the company’s Israeli president and founder, who was born Jan. 16, 1950.

It was a chocolate box, but victims’ names were placed inside instead of candy.

He also left a small coffin he made with the letters “CSI” and “RIP” written on the side.

“We’re hoping they’ll close or at least stop sending shipments abroad,” he said.

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