Emergency Department head on post-rally response: No false, erroneous, over-the-top data, but just reality-grounded information

Head of the Department for Emergency Situations (DSU) Raed Arafat said in an interview with AGERPRES that the information provided by the Department on the effects of tear gas exposure in the context of the August 10 rally were not intended whatsoever to support one camp or the other, but only to present data of public interest. 

He added that although the DSU release has drawn "hundreds, even thousands of extremely aggressive comments", the task of the Department for Emergency Situations is not to defend its image at the "cost of staying silent or of supplying erroneous data." 

Raed Arafat said in the interview that "he cannot pronounce on the intervention of the law enforcement, or the way tear substances have been used. There is an investigation underway by the Prosecutor's Office that will come up with all the data and details when the investigation is completed and say what they deem was right and what was wrong. This is the normal course." 

"The Department's role is by no means that of supporting one camp or another. The role of the Department is to collect certain data, respond to it and tell the population what it considers to be normal, what it considers to be in the public interest, whether this pleases someone or not. This is the reason why we came out and said: 'For those who don't have symptoms, who don't have issues, we don't recommend that they go to the hospital. Those with persistent symptoms should go to the hospital or consult a doctor.' In the end, this was a recommendation. There are countries where such substances are used on a weekly basis, or every month, there are [frequent] rallies where police use something. 

What the Department did was to clarify certain aspects the population was free to consider or not. A cold-headed analysis shows we did not provide false or erroneous data, we gave no over the top data. We strictly presented reality. Yet our recommendation was twisted in the public space, appearing that we allegedly recommended people not to go to hospital at all. ... We only said there was no need for those who have no symptoms and no issues to go to hospital for routine check-ups, and that was normal," said Arafat.