Lying about tear gas deaths: Lisa Goldman and Joseph Dana

Elder of Ziyon
06 January '11

I stumbled across a tweet from self-described journalist Lisa Goldman, where she says "Amnesty Int'l documented 40 deaths in one year from the tear gas that killed Jawaher Abu Rahmah."

Her source? The rabidly anti-Israel lobby group, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. In 1992 they wrote:

Amnesty International has reported 40 deaths from CS tear gas inhalation alone from December 1987 to June 1988.

Notice this: Lisa did not try to look for the original Amnesty International report that supposedly says this. She linked to WRMEA; uncritically believing that they were quoting Amnesty. This is not how a journalist is supposed to act.

This piece of information of the supposed 40 deaths in a single year has now been rocketing around the Twittersphere and blogosphere and even some left wing websites. But no one has tried to find the actual report. Except for one person: Joseph Dana, of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee - who may have started this rumor - says that Amnesty wrote it in their report "Israel and the Occupied Territories: Amnesty International’s concerns in 1988."

Amnesty's 1988 report is not online. But their response to Israel's criticisms regarding that report is. And here is how they defend their methodology:

(Read full "Lying about tear gas deaths: Lisa Goldman and Joseph Dana")

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