NBC PHILADELPHIA: The website of a U.S. company whose tear gas has been used against demonstrators in Egypt is the latest to be broken into by the Anonymous movement, hackers claimed Tuesday. In a statement posted to the Internet, hackers accused Combined Systems of being war profiteers who sell “mad chemical weapons to militaries and cop shops around the world.” Anonymous has claimed a series of Web attacks worldwide and has increasingly focused on security companies, law enforcement and governmental organizations. The group has often worked in tandem with the Occupy protest movement in the United States and has expressed solidarity with the pro-democracy protests across the Arab world. On Tuesday Anonymous said it had targeted Combined Systems because it was supplying weaponry used to “to repress our revolutionary movements.” […] The company says sells a variety of security wares, including aerosol grenades, sprays and handcuffs. Journalists and activists have reported finding the company’s tear gas canisters at Egypt’s Tahrir Square, where authorities have repeatedly cracked down on demonstrators with deadly force. Last year Human rights group Amnesty International said that Combined Systems had delivered some 46 tons of ammunition – including chemical irritants and tear gas – to the Egyptian government in three separate shipments. MORE
RELATED: “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”
RELATED: Egyptians in the United States protested Friday outside Combined Systems Inc., believed to be the manufacturer of the tear gas used by Egyptian security forces in Tahrir Square.As part of their protests at the Jamestown, Penn. firm, the Egyptians — joined by Occupy Wall Street activists — lay down on the ground and played dead, Egyptian news site Al-Masry Al-Youm reported. Several demonstrators also wore eye patches to show solidarity with protesters in Cairo who lost their eyes from rubber bullets. MORE
RELATED: Almost every day pro-democracy protests still bubble up in Sitra, and even when they are completely peaceful they are crushed with a barrage of American-made tear gas. People here admire much about America and welcomed me into their homes, but there is also anger that the tear gas shells that they sweep off the streets each morning are made by a Pennsylvania company, NonLethal Technologies. It is a private company that declined to comment, but the American government grants it a license for these exports — and every shell fired undermines our image. In August, Ali joined one of the protests. A policeman fired a shell at Ali from less than 15 feet away, according to the account of the family and human-rights groups. The shell apparently hit the boy in the back of the neck, and he died almost immediately, a couple of minutes’ walk from his home. MORE
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