IRSP: American Company Culpable for Killing of Turkish Death Fasters

[Danielle Ni Dhighe <nidhighe@xxxxxxxx>]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Irish Republican Socialist Party
9 November 2001

IRSP: American Company Culpable for Killing of Turkish Death Fasters

The International Department of the IRSP today said that they had
identified the company who manufactured the gas grenades used by Turkish
forces against the death fasters and their supporters in Istambul. The gas
used against the Turkish hunger strikers and their supporters by the
government is called 5230 CS Riot Smoke. It is made by an American firm,
Combined Systems Inc., based in New York.

"While the company did not lob the gas grenades which were used to kill six
on the death fasters, they supplied them to the government who used them
against their own citizens," IRSP International Department spokesperson
Peadar Baile said. "The supporters of the IRSP in the U.S., the Irish
Republican Socialist Committees of North America, are calling for all
those concerned to write Combined Systems to protest their sale of these
gas grenades to the repressive Turkish regime."

Mr. Baile provided the firm's mailing address as: Combined Systems Inc.,
226 Newtown Road, Plainview, New York 11803. Their telephone number was
given as: 516-777-7888.

"These are the folks who killed Arzu," said IRSP's International Department
Co-Secretary Terry Harkin, from London. "They killed her. Maybe they did
not throw the bomb into the house, but they made it and exported it to a
bunch of bastards who did so. They are culpable in my eyes. They do not
have an office here, but our comrades in the U.S. are initiating a protest
against the company, which I fully endorse."

"We are asking all those who support the Turkish hunger strikers, all
those who support human and civil rights, to write protesting  Combined
Systems' culpability in these deaths and asking for them to cease all
further sales to the Turkish government, so long as they continue policies
of repression and violence against their own citizens," Mr. Baile said.
"Those who create these weapons and supply them to reactionary, despotic
regimes must be called to account for their actions.

"The murder of six death fasters was an act of inhumanity, and the IRSP
reiterate our call upon the Irish government to recall their Ambassador to
Turkey in protest."

ENDS

###

Republican Socialist Publicity Bureau
392 Falls Road, Belfast, BT48 6DH, Ireland
Tel: 028 90 321024          Fax: 028 90 330786
Email: irsp@xxxxxxxxxx   Website: http://www.irsm.org/irsm.html


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