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AW@L Statement on Targeted Policing at the Toronto G20 Convergence and the Continued Criminalization of Community Organizations.

posted by Dan Kellar

September 15th 2010 – Kitchener-Waterloo

G20 Policing, Political Targeting, and Anarchy

The Toronto G20 and G8 summits of so-called “leaders” of the self-described free world were defiantly met by a massive convergence of people oriented towards social justice. Indigenous Nations and anti-poverty groups, migrant justice activists, anti-capitalists, environmentalists, community builders, disAbility rights advocates, radical feminists, anarchists, moms and grandmothers, animal liberation crusaders, maternal health advocates, civil libertarians, liberals, and some people from the right and a score of others from the entire spectrum of the ecological and social justice movements took the streets to share their love and rage. For another time on Turtle Island in 2010, a people’s convergence was met with scorn and repudiation from these uncaring leaders and with violence and violations from the massive security operation mobilized to keep us silent.

The punitive events around the G20 summit in June 2010 uncovered a new reality of the police state to many of our communities. 19 000 officers from the Toronto Police, RCMP, the Waterloo regional police and many other police forces swarmed the streets on foot, patrolled on dominated horseback and bicycle, and in unmarked vans and SUVs. Nearly every AW@L member was, at one point during the week of the Toronto convergence, illegally detained, illegally searched, or illegally arrested. 7 of our members have been taken away from our community by the state on political charges of criminal conspiracy, many others share these charges, and over 250 others have been charged by the state. The violence perpetrated by the police on demonstrators and others who happened to be in the area is thoroughly documented and is entirely inexcusable, yet the police are not held to account--no cops are being charged, and no federal inquiry is going to take place. The further violence and harassment which continues against AW@L members, friends, and strong allies as targets of the penal and legal systems are equally absurd and unjustified. It is clear that the state and its enforcers are considering this situation within a hysterical political narrative — the direction of police, the actions of the court, and the mainstream messaging that has been selected and presented do...

Immigrants with Amnesia

posted by Dan Kellar

by: Rachel Avery and Dan Kellar

"No one is illegal, Canada is illegal!"
-No One Is Illegal - Vancouver/Coast Salish

As the Harper government continues to hold 492 Tamil refugees in detention on unfounded, racially-based suspicions, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews continues to make clear the racist, anti-immigrant motivations of his department and this Conservative administration. Over the past week, four men have been arrested and three of them charged as part of a 2-year investigation entitled "Project Samosa". Because of their ethnicity they have been demonised in government rhetoric, and presented as guilty before they have been able to face trial. This troubling discourse has been supported and furthered by mainstream media and public commentary. We must continue to counter such narratives and challenge the xenophobia they encourage.
In an article in Friday's Globe and Mail, "Ottawa urges immigrant communities to report suspicious behaviour", reporter Steven Chase wastes no time in presenting and defending the latest batch of racist remarks from Minister Toews. The Harper government has issued an appeal "to Canadians - and immigrants in particular - to monitor and report suspicious or extremist activity" in response to what they describe as a rising threat of 'homegrown terrorism'. This targeting of immigrant communities is very troubling; it is not a way to tell these communities that they are "part of us" as is suggested in Chase's article. If this was Minister Toews's intention, he would not have singled out any communities. In doing so, he is implicitly telling those communities mentioned that they are "other", that they are not part of what he views to be "Canadian" society. Furthermore, he is supporting xenophobia in singling out racialised communities as being potential sources of terrorism. And it is indeed a racialised assessment that is being put forward; singled out in Chase's article are South Asian, Somalian and others from countries with large Muslim populations. When Toews refers to the need for "assistance from ethnic communities", one must doubt that Toews is referring to communities of immigrants from, for instance, Scotland, Germany, or Finland in this appeal to immigrants to report suspicious or extremist activity.

Simply that the suspects arrested last week in connection with an alleged terror plot are so prominently identified as being of South Asian heritage is indicative of the...

Shameful Behaviour - the Canadian State and Tamil Refugees

posted by Dan Kellar

by: Rachel Avery and Dan Kellar

Once again, the approach of a ship carrying refugees has been met by racist hostility and unfounded accusations of terrorism. The arrival of the MV Sun Sea to the shores of Vancouver Island has seen an outpouring of explicitly racist, anti-immigrant discourse throughout Canada. In a country which would like to consider itself a champion of humanitarianism, it should be shocking that the government’s racist treatment of these refugees has been largely met with support and further racism rather than with disgust and protest. The actions of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and the Canada Border Services Agency in response to this situation are abhorrent; these policies must be challenged along with the racism that supports them.

The MV Sun Sea, carrying almost 500 Tamil refugees, reached the harbour of Esquimalt, British Columbia last Friday. Tamils have faced mass atrocities perpetrated by the Sri Lankan government throughout the bloody 26-year “civil war” between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil population, which, despite its official end last year, did not resolve tensions between the two groups. Many Tamils have fled their homes to escape persecution, and in the past 2 years Canada has accepted more than 90 percent of refugee claimants from Sri Lanka. Last year, the Ocean Lady landed in Canada with 76 Tamils on board, causing a similar panic to that occurring around the MV Sun Sea. The Canadian Government saw fit to detain the passengers of the Ocean Lady based on unfounded suspicions. In spite of Ottawa trying to use Section 86 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which allows for secret evidence in closed hearings, all the men were eventually released when the Canada Border Services Agency was forced to admit they had no evidence of any terrorist connections. The targeting of those on the MV Sun Sea is similarly unfounded and unjust.

Before these refugees had even reached our shores, they were already being described in racist and hysterical terms. The pernicious and prominent use of the term "illegal" and the malicious labelling of refugees as "criminals" and "terrorists" should be sickening. This is the epitome of racial prejudice; these 490 asylum-seekers have been presumed to be potential terrorists and subsequently jailed because of their country of origin, viewed as guilty by the government and many Canadians before their...

G8/G20, They Few, We Many: Solidarity with the Toronto Arrestees

posted by Dan Kellar

just found this...

more international solidarity for the political prisoners of the g20 and against state repression of activists, from the The RNC 8 Defense Committee.

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G8/G20, They Few, We Many: Solidarity with the Toronto Arrestees

June 2010 brought thousands upon thousands of dedicated activists to the streets of Toronto to protest and confront the G8/G20, as “world leaders” conspired to further destroy our communities and the world around us for the sake of power and profit. Residents of Toronto and activists from all over Canada and the world were met by an army of police officers with a budget of $1 billion to fund their campaign of repressive violence, fear and intimidation. This campaign was designed to sweep the streets of anyone daring to speak out against the destructive policies perpetuated by the G8/G20 and to scare people away from organizing resistance to these policies.

Not content with attacking people in the streets and arresting nearly 1100 protesters, the Canadian government also attacked the very ideas of community and organizing by arresting 17 prominent community organizers from around Canada and charging them with conspiracy. Those who have been released from jail face harsh bail conditions that prevent them from associating with people in their communities and from exercising their rights to organize and voice their dissent. This attempt at breaking solidarity amongst and with the accused must not and will not be successful.

Around two years earlier and 1300 kilometers to the west, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota experienced similar repression and attacks by the state during the 2008 Republican National Convention. Prior to the convention, police preemptively arrested eight anarchist organizers, now known as the RNC 8, through a series of raids and targeted grabs. During the convention, the police attacked thousands of protesters who had taken to the streets, ultimately arresting 818 people.

In July 2010, the RNC 8 and their supporters are still gearing up for trial, still fighting back against the state’s attempts to disrupt our organizing and resistance. The state initially charged the RNC 8 with conspiracy “in the furtherance of terrorism,” but our resistance exposed the political motivations behind these charges and forced the prosecutor to drop them. Our...

Supporting the Prisoners of the G20 Police State - Peter Gelderloos

posted by Dan Kellar

reposted from counterpunch Supporting the Prisoners of the G20 Police State

By PETER GELDERLOOS

This week, my mind is with the sixteen Canadians who will be transported between their maximum security jail cells and the court to determine whether they will be held in prison until trial or released on extremely restrictive bail conditions. They are accused of organizing the protests against the elite G20 summit of world leaders that took place in Toronto at the end of June. At these protests, thousands of people took to the streets in opposition to specific policies of these twenty leading world governments or in negation of the global political and economic system in its entirety. Protestors enacted their disagreement and outrage in a variety of ways that included protest, counterinformation, and property destruction targeting the summit security forces and several major corporations.

In all, over 1000 people were arrested during three days of protest, many of them detained based on their appearance, put in cages, sexually harassed or assaulted, injured, denied food, water, legal and medical attention, and otherwise abused. Of those thousand plus detainees, these sixteen are facing the heaviest charges, accused of conspiracy as the supposed ringleaders of the mayhem.

Some of them were arrested in early morning raids, forced half-naked out of bed at gunpoint, assembled on their lawns and handcuffed in the pre-dawn darkness, and hauled off to jail. Others were picked up while biking or walking around town, sometimes by plainclothes cops making lightning grabs, a tactic perfected by the Stalinist police (the cops are internationalists, you see, and their methods for control travel across borders with much greater ease than they allow the rest of us).

None of this should be surprising. Powerful men in suits convening to discuss world problems; heavily armed police kicking down a door and sticking a gun in your face—this is the most ordinary juxtaposition imaginable in a democratic society.

The G20, just like the G8 and just like the International Monetary Fund or World Trade Organization and just like capitalism as a...

Statement from the Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance in Defence of our Comrades

posted by Dan Kellar

STATEMENT FROM THE SOUTHERN ONTARIO ANARCHIST RESISTANCE IN DEFENCE OF OUR COMRADES

July 1st 2010,

This last week has been witness to some of the most powerful protests that Toronto has ever seen. We saw rallies for the environment, queer liberation, disAbility rights, indigenous sovereignty, economic and migrant justice, community power, and more. The state responded to these actions as its internal logic dictated it must. When people reached out for more control over their lives, the marginalizing state struck back with vicious force. As an institution established by violence, perpetuated by violence, and sustained by violence, its response could only be violent. Martial law descended on our city. The cops arrested anyone and everyone they chose to. The riot squad punched pacifists and stampeded demonstrators. They detained 1100 people. Our friends were locked in cages, denied food, water and toilet paper, humiliated and degraded. The officers stood by, abused and taunted, and said they were just doing their job, as do the Eichmanns of every generation.

They have targeted twenty of us, long-term community organizers, as the so-called “ring leaders” of the protests that they hope to scapegoat. Even this act shows how little they understand us. We have no leaders. These twenty are our teachers, friends, and mentors. And although they are invaluable to our lives, they are not “SOAR”. Nor are we. This anarchist network, like others, is not primarily composed of individuals, but of ideas. It is the ideas that bind us – of the injustice of capitalism and colonialism, and the belief that a new world based on self-determination, freedom, and mutual aid is possible. That is why they can spend a billion dollars on the biggest jails, and the fascist police force, but they can never stamp out our movement. They cannot erase us, because our ideas cannot be destroyed and because we revolutionaries are the inevitable outgrowth of a society that is fundamentally broken. Out of the putrid manure of capitalism, flowers of resistance inevitably bloom.

They will try with all their might to break us. But we cannot be broken. Our comrades stay strong in prison and we will not be disheartened. As long as a single one of us remains free under the sky, our voices and our songs and our fists will be raised in defiance.

We are not the first anarchists to be targeted by the state. We remember...

Comments posted by Dan Kellar

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