South Korea: Don’t Give Us Gas!

With South Korea planning to ship 550,000 teargas canisters and grenades to Turkey next month, it is time to act.  Please take action today!

In a previous post, I discussed  Turkey’s plans to purchase an astounding 1.9 million teargas canisters and gas grenades from South Korea.  I outlined both Turkey’s sorry record of misusing such weapons and the incredible amount of teargas involved in the purchase, noting:

It also represents just under 15 times the amount of tear gas used by Turkey during the first twenty days of the Gezi protests (130,000 canisters, according to Turkish authorities).  To think about this another way (and feel free to check my math here, I’m merely a historian after all), 1.9 million tear gas canisters and gas grenades would allow Turkey to employ gas in the excessive manner it did during the height of the Gezi crackdown for a whopping, 292 days, or nearly 10 months.  The mind boggles.

With the first proposed shipment of 550,000 teargas canisters and grenades scheduled for the middle of January, a coalition of human rights groups, including Amnesty International – Turkey have joined in a petition drive asking the South Korean government to suspend shipments before it is too late.

What you can do:

1. Sign the petition.  Although the text is in Turkish, the basic outlines of the concerns can be found in this Amnesty International news brief.  The actual section for signing the petition is, on my browser at least, in English

2. Support the campaign through social media.  Share information on facebook and twitter.  Use the hashtag #koreBizeGazVerme (Korea: Don’t Give Us Gas!)

3. Contact the South Korean government directly. You can also contact South Korean embassies or consulates in your home country and express your concerns to them directly.  A full list of South Korea’s overseas representatives can be found here.

The first shipment is only weeks away.  The time to act is now.