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No One Is Illegal at the G8/G20 Mobilizations in Toronto
Joint Statement of No One Is Illegal Toronto, No One Is Illegal Vancouver, No One Is Illegal Halifax, No One Is Illegal Montreal, No One Is Illegal Ottawa
No Fences, No Borders!
No One Is Illegal, Canada Is Illegal!
As most of you have heard, from June 25th to 27th the world’s richest countries (the G8 and G20) will send their poli-trickers and banking elite, along with heads of the EU, IMF and World Bank, to meet in Huntsville and then in Toronto. They will be talking bailouts, corporate green-washing, and how to further deepen their own and their friends’ pockets. The G8 and G20 countries and their corporations make most of the weapons on the planet, profit from war, subsidize oil corporations and massive industrial projects, and are responsible for pushing millions out of their homes each year. Migrants arriving in G20 countries are treated as exploitable labour - fenced in to precarious work - and often living in fear of detention and deportation.
This week, thousands will converge in Toronto to expose and challenge the deadly policies of the G8 and the G20. No One Is Illegal, a grassroots anti-colonial migrant justice group across Kanada with members primarily of racialized/immigrant backgrounds, will be there! We will fight to create a world free of the many fences and borders that divide us, and to create communities that can live with justice and dignity. We invite our friends and allies to join us and particularly for those who are vulnerable (as people of colour, trans folks, non status etc) we encourage you to form affinity groups to support each other and to stay safe.
On June 22nd, we will join our allies in the gender justice and queer liberation movements in their fierce and creative actions grounded in the daily lived experiences of women, queer, and trans folks to overcome marginalization. As part of No One Is Illegal’s Access without Fear campaign, we will be demanding the right to Shelter, to Sanctuary, and to Status for all migrant women and trans people. On June 23rd, we will gather with environmental justice activists who are exposing institutions and corporations responsible for the environmental and social impacts of Canada's extractive industries at home and abroad.
On June 24th, we will stand alongside Indigenous defenders who struggle across Turtle Island against centuries of colonial and genocidal policies that have caused impoverishment, forced assimilation of distinct cultures, and theft of land and resources. As non-native multiracial supporters, we strongly believe that our movement must always be in active solidarity with Indigenous communities.
On June 25th, we will march alongside community groups who organize daily against the indignities and dehumanization of poverty, discrimination, lack of inclusive services, wage-slave working conditions, repressive immigration policies, gentrification, environmental degradation, and police brutality. Joining struggles against homelessness and displacement, we will march towards the fence and will build a Tent City that will showcase the just communities we wish to live in.
On June 26th, we will rally alongside anti war activists demanding an end to Canadian complicity in imperialist occupations from Afghanistan to Haiti. We will be alongside working people to oppose patriarchy, racism, privatization, cuts to services, and exploitation of (im)migrant workers; to demand living wages, workers control, and status for all; and to make clear that the violence of capitalism cannot be reformed.
On June 26, we will also rise alongside anti-capitalists and radical labour activists who are continuing towards the fence to confront the police state and the billion dollar security apparatus that the G20 finance ministers and corporations hide behind. Just as resistance against the border walls from Palestine to Mexico cannot be contained, our love and rage for liberation cannot be contained. We assert: the militarized fence - another physical and ideological symbol of global apartheid, corporate greed, and a way to keep the elite separate from the people - should come down.
On the evening of June 26th, we will party alongside those reclaiming the streets, while on June 27th we will join prison abolitionists highlighting the growing insecurity and repression of the prison and surveillance industrial complex.
In the coming week, we encourage all our allies to join us on the streets and unite for justice. For a world with self-determination for all Indigenous communities; environmental justice; income equity and community control over resources; migrant justice; gender, queer, disability, and reproductive rights; and freedom for all oppressed peoples. Rise in struggle till all the walls and fences fall!
“Walls turned on their sides, are bridges.”
- Graffiti on US/Mexico border wall
* For G20 and G8 People's Convergence Breaking Updates: http://2010.mediacoop.ca/
To contribute to this site, please tag youtube, twitter and flickr posts with #g20report.
* Independent media:
http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/
http://rabble.ca/
http://g20.torontomobilize.org/altmedia
* Toronto Community Mobilization Network Solidarity and Respect Statement: http://g20.torontomobilize.org/SolidarityRespect
* For further details on these events and information on Accessibility, Legal, Medics, Schedule, and more:
http://g20.torontomobilize.org/
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