In teargas we trust: How a chemical weapon is being increasingly used against peaceful protesters without scrutiny

Little is known about the companies that produce the weapon, what chemicals go into it and how they are used once they are abroad, Borzou Daragahi reports

Police officers in Portland march towards protesters after firing teargas (AP)

Cat Villiers was living in the Egyptian capital making a feature film when she got caught up in the fiery protests that followed the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. Repeatedly she found herself in the middle of demonstrations where police fired volleys of teargas into crowds. Day after day, she inhaled the searing vapours, the sharp smell permeating the walls and alleyways of her central Cairo neighbourhood.

That’s when she says the medical problems began. A lifelong sufferer of asthma, the frequency and severity of her attacks escalated. Serious respiratory infections sent her nearly monthly to the hospital in Cairo and back home in London. To this day, she continues to suffer bouts of illness she’s convinced stem from repeated inhalation of teargas.

“Slowly, during 2011 and 2012, I realised that my lungs were getting worse and worse,” said the filmmaker, who is now in her 50s and living in the UK. “After being exposed to it a lot, my chest complaints and propensity to get pneumonia got much worse. And it has remained like that ever since.”