On Tuesday, the website of the rights group Bahrain Watch revealed the contact details of Korean authorities and the companies that have sold vast quantities of tear gas to Bahrain.

The website requested its audience to call the Korean entities and ask them to cancel any supply plans.

The South Korean government has not yet announced weather it issues an export license for the shipment of tear gas produced by those firms.

The Tuesday move followed a revelation by the group about the purchase of a huge quantity of tear gas canisters by the Al Khalifa regime.

On October 16, the group leaked documents showing the regime was planning to buy 1.6 million canisters of tear gas along with 145,000 sound and flash grenades, 45,000 CS hand grenades, and 45,000 teargas hand grenades used for cracking down on protesters in the country.

Many activists and rights groups have censured the excessive use of tear gas by the Saudi-backed forces, which fire canisters directly at protesters or within confined spaces such as houses and cars.

“CS gas as misused in Bahrain is most certainly lethal. And it is lethal because of the intensity of its use [and] the concentration within a confined room, and it is not supposed to be used in a confined space,” said Irish Orthopedic Surgeon Professor Damian McCormack, who is also a member of a Bahraini NGO, at a press conference in Switzerland in June.

According to Physicians for Human Rights, 39 deaths have been attributed to teargas in the country, a figure the regime disputes.

In March 2012, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said a number of Bahraini protesters and bystanders died due to the use of tear gas in the tiny Persian Gulf island.

Since mid-February 2011, thousands of pro-democracy protesters have held numerous demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.

On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country to assist the Bahraini regime in its crackdown on peaceful protesters.

According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested.

Physicians for Human Rights says doctors and nurses have been detained, tortured, or disappeared because they have “evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces, and riot police” in the crackdown on anti-government protesters.

NT/MHB/AS