Toronto Media Co-op

Local Independent News

More independent news:
Do you want free independent news delivered weekly? sign up now
Can you support independent journalists with $5? donate today!

The Erosion of "Rights": a quick descent

a few highlights for serious consideration

by Maya Rolbin-Ghanie

The Erosion of "Rights": a quick descent
Indigenous Rights march, Thursday
Indigenous Rights march, Thursday
The Erosion of "Rights": a quick descent

Groups of undercover police were repeatedly identified by protesters at marches occurring between Monday and Wednesday. Some were reportedly wearing black baseball caps, bandanas with marijuana leaf-designs on them, and patches with Che Guevara on them. When asked by journalists if they were police, none denied it. Several arrests were made each day, habitually after the days' demonstrations had dispersed and people were leaving the scene.

On Thursday we all discovered that a regulation created by the authority of the Public Works Act had been passed in secret on June 2nd, which essentially allows for anyone within five metres of the G20 security fence (even if they happen to just be walking by), to be searched without reason, asked for their ID, detained, and even possibly arrested. Dave Vasey did not wish to show his ID without reason and consequently was the first person to be arrested under this new regulation. He is facing court on July 28. Many other similar searches, detainments, and arrests have been made since.

One woman accused by police of trying to break into a building. When she spoke to the press it was revealed that the building was her place of work and she had been using her keys to get inside.

On Friday morning at 4:45am Police pre-emptively raided 2 Toronto houses where activists were staying. No warrant for arrest was shown. Police kicked people from their beds and made arrests. A tenant residing upstairs in one of the houses awoke to a gun in his face, and was cuffed and arrested, before being released and told that that he had been mistakenly arrested. Later the same morning, police arrested 15-20 organizers from Montreal. A spokesperson for the Toronto Community Mobilization Network was arrested on his way to a press conference to discuss the roundup of activists and organizers by police. Another organizer slated to be at the press conference was "snatched" and thrown into an unmarked van by police, driven around for an hour without being told where she was being taken, and eventually dropped off in Mississagua. What many find most significant here, is the pre-emptive nature of these raids (many arrested were the organizers of demonstrations and events yet to take place), and the appalling lack of due process in making the arrests. Bail is being set high for some: between $1000 and $5000. Some are being faced with charges more severe than others, “conspiracy to committ mischief” among them.

In the early morning, 80 workers from Hotel Novotel' s Unite Here! Local 75 went on strike. The strike was triggered after Accor, the French company that owns Novatel, walked away from negotiations without addressing an offer put on the table by the union, which included basic demands for a pension plan and guaranteeing workers enough hours to make a living.

Emomotimi Azorbo, a deaf man unrelated to G20 organizing, was beaten and arrested because he did not hear police commands to stay off the road. Azorbo was handcuffed, preventing him from communicating with officers, who also refused his friend's offer to interpret. Azorbo was refused an American Sign Language interpreter in the temporary jail where G20 arrestees are being held. He is charged with three counts of assaulting police plus resisting arrest.

While trying to film Azorbo's violent arrest, Jesse Freeston, of the Real News Network, was punched in the face twice by police, and had his microphone temporarily confiscated while other media crowded around and yelled for the police to return it.

On Saturday, there was no sign of protester violence, among the 25, 000 plus people who took to the streets, contrary to what many corporate media reports are conveying. A few banks, franchises and corporations had their windows smashed in symbolic shows of property damage. On the contrary, levels of police violence have been extreme and brutal. Police repeatedly attacked and arrested peaceful protesters and journalists.

A number of police cars were set on fire. They were abandoned in the middle of intersections beforehand, and stripped of all their equipment by police--the cars were discovered to have been damaged previously, which led to reports that the police had purposefully left the cars there as bait, hoping to tempt protesters to set the cars on fire, in order to justify their own violent acts. Later accounts led many to believe that the fires themselves were set by undercover police, or agents provocateurs.

One journalist was beaten by police.

Another community organizer was violently thrown around by police and later arrested, with several “severe” charges.

Jesse Rosenfeld, journalist with The Guardian, was punched in the eye, and violently arrested, being told he “talked too much.” At least four more Alternative Media journalists were arrested throughout the day.

A CTV producer and 2 National Post journalists were also arrested.

A family of non-protesters was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were pushed back with police bikes and pepper sprayed. Message recieved by a journalist: “They were pushing my mom and me and throwing punches at my brother and they just kept pushing forward and saying 'move move move' and not really caring who was there. I have cancer and I kept saying "I have cancer, I have cancer,' but they didn't care, they just kept pushing forward.”

Later on in the day, there is footage of police charging out of their lines, about five at a time, and violently arresting peaceful protesters, one by one, dragging them back behind police lines, pushing them to the ground and handcuffed.

Mass arrests were conducted, and large numbers of people were arrested who happened to be in the area at the time.

After the violent arrests described above, a university woman was trampled by a cops on horses in Queen's Park, a so-called “Free Speech Zone.” She was among other peaceful protestors in the park at the time, but did not manage to get out of the way fast enough. She was reportedly badly injured. The police arrested her.

The Queen's Park Area saw about 20,000 police from all over the country, whether on horse, in cars, in vans, in riot gear, undercover, or in the choppers above. The area was described by many as a military camp, or a war zone.

There have been multiple reports of police following people in the streets and harassment and intimidation. Some people have been detained and harassed for the T-shirts they have chosen to wear, most notably, a shirt that is currently selling 'like hotcakes,' which says "Fuck the G20."

There have been photos taken of individuals being "disappeared" into unmarked, presumably police vans.

A peaceful sit-in staged at Novotel Hotel in support of striking workers was stopped by police and more than 100 arrests were made. People were not given an option to leave first.

A party of about 130 people who went to the detention centre last night to do jail solidarity work for hundreds of friends and fellow activists still being held there was broken up by riot police, and told that if they left right away they would not be arrested. About 100 left right away, and 30 stuck around to discuss for about 2 minutes. They decided to leave, but were no longer left with a choice, as police surrounded and arrested them. Among those arrested were 2 or 3 legal observers.

On Sunday, at 10am, another group of people went to the detention centre to do jail solidarity. They were reportedly eventually dispersed with tear gas and rubber bullets, and many were beat with batons, as the police charged on a peaceful crowd of over 100, some playing music. At least 20 more arrests were made. A stand-off between police and protesters continues right now, outside of the detention centre.

Many protesters are also currently being hospitalized for injuries from being beaten by police.

After driving by the Alternative Media Centre (AMC) several times the previous night, police showed up at the doors of the AMC claiming that neigbours had issued complaints about people milling around outside. (Many in the neighbourhood have come by the media centre, but only to offer words of support, and to get the news). Police said they could not be sure whether or not those inside the space had broken in or were squatting. Luckily, the landlord vouched for the AMC folks and the police eventually left.

70 people were targeted and arrested at the University of Toronto.

An alternative journalist was arrested for filming police doing searches of everybody at an activists convergence space where many were preparing to return to their home cities. The convergence space is currently being raided by more than 200 police and more than 30 activists have been arrested. The rest of the people there are “still surrounded.” The journalist was ultimately released. There is currently a demonstartion happening outside of the convergence centre.

The majority of arrests made so far have involved giant "sweeps" of peaceful protesters, and have not been made for any identifiably justifiable/ legal reasons, or with due process, such as reading people their rights, allowing them access to a lawyer, or informing them of the charges against them.

The corporate media continue, for the most part, to focus on “protester violence,” while neglecting to report on rampant police violence or on the issues that the protesters themselves have raised at demonstrations.

The number of arrests since the G20 protests began is now 520+.

Personally, I have never seen anything like this and am appalled at the terrifying political and rhetorical shift that has occurred in Canada's treatment of its community organizers in the last few days. It seems to me that activists are being treated as terrorists of some sort. I cannot imagine any other reason for targeting everybody involved in the organization of events and demonstrations, for targeting journalists and communications people, for rounding people up and locking them away, for raiding their homes, simply for protesting the G20 summit in some form or another.

 

UPDATE: 600 ARRESTED, Sunday early evening.

UPDATE 2: "A few hundred" protesters arrested at Queen and Spadina, at approximately 9:30pm, Sunday.

UPDATE 3: Terrible prison conditions being reported by some of those being released: cold and overcrowded "cages," lack of food and water, hands being left tied, strip searches, sexual assault.

UPDATE: 900 arrests and counting. Largest number of arrests in Canadian history

UPDATE: The regulation created by the authority of the Public Works Act was fabricated by police and in complicity with politicians. Nobody bothered to mention it had all been a lie until after the summit was over.

 

 

 

 

 


Socialize:
Want more grassroots coverage?
Join the Media Co-op today.

Creative Commons license icon Creative Commons license icon

About the poster

Trusted by 5 other users.
Has posted 6 times.
View Maya's profile »

Recent Posts:

picture of Maya

Maya (Maya Rolbin-Ghanie)
Montreal
Member since June 2008

About:

I grew up in the woods in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. I am of mixed ethnicity. I love dogs so much it's hard to handle. I am a freelance creative writer and journalist. I have issues with patience and need to work on my skills in dealing with bureaucracy.

1742 words

Comments

Just called my local MP to

Just called my local MP to focus on civil and human rights for those heroic individuals sitting in jail. The complete lack of rationality and compassion by the police and the media is sickening. Experiencing this situation is by far more terrifying than seeing it on the news. I hope everyone is staying strong. Hang in there, my darlings.

Take notice

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Now this is a warning, obviously it's time people took a stand to stop this outrageous out bursts of the law. Take the middle class and the poor class of the working world and have them either go on strike or finally say enough is enough. For how long have they been robbing us of our freedoms and rights?  Then to add on top of that, harassment along with negligents to simple human rights, look I’m all for the law when they do their job and know their position with enforcing the law, but other than that police have been over stepping their boundaries and I think it's finally time something should be done. Along with some common sense to start asking why Canadian politicians go over to third world dictators and learn from them (wakeup call) it’s because those areas are run by a dictatorship and slowly but surely Canada is following suite. It’s disgusting to think this way but its reality. As for what I have read about the so called g20 plan to come together to help the economy and its decline to its stabilization. Give me a break! It will slip again, why you may ask, look at it this way. Tons of thousands of people each day get older the older they get the closer some get to having their first credit card. Now they want them to have these credit cards so there can be debt. Only when there is too much debt without it being paid back the money only circles so much till it spirals back to the point where it will crash because the money is technically not being put back into society by means of buying it’s being replaced by an I.O.U
Oh well it’s going to play out the way it’s going to until the masses realize what is going on and hopefully take a stand or wait to see what tragedy will befall society by doing nothing.    

 

also should be noted it seems

also should be noted it seems there were a strange number of break - ins in the days leading up to the protests of activists houses.

Technical Issue.

I found at least one technical issue with the article, and that is about the Public Works Protection Act, the act was passed around 1939, the most recent consolidation was in 1990. The "law" you speak of isn't a law, but is a regulation created by the authority of the Public Works Act, it was created June 2, 2010.

The act allows the Lieutenant Governor in Council to create regulations, one of them being to define an area as a public works area that falls under the protection of the Public Works Protection Act.

It is all completely legal, but still very underhanded and devious in that they did this without debate, and without notifying anyone of it.

Thank you for this.

Thank you for this.

legality of perimeter

While a sham of legal process clothes this new regulation, it is patently NOT legal!!! Amnesty Intl. is requesting a probe into the whole situation.

Bang on.

Well, it's the Miami model.  Organizers are being treated like terrorists because, as far as this particular party, running this particular federal government is concerned, thet *are* terrorists.  As such, they have no rights.  It's antidemocratic and illegal, but that's the 'War on Terror' for you.  Bitch is, the public agrees with them that it's for their safety.

@ atarijedi

@ atarijedi:

 

Just idly suggesting that you email that data and your source to the UK's The Guardian at Guardian.co.uk.  They're probably not up on Provincial Ontario law and its vagaries, and I'm sure they'd be *very* interested in the skullduggery the Cons and the Ontario government had to use to get their charter-defying illegal powers.  It would be more fuel to the strong case they seem to be building against these summits.

Thx for the coverage

Thanks for that complete work of human rights watch. I'll spread the info and use it for my interview tomorrow morning. Keep the good work.

 

cameras for everyone

the best way to deal with this would be to encourage every single persone to carry a camera and film the police. have them all put it up on youtube. filming police officers is NOT illegal. and if they are recorded, they are much more likely to be held accountable. as well, if everyone is recording them, they cannot arrest the people recording since there will be too many

just nazi germany all over

just nazi germany all over again

"where are your papers!"

Re Cameras for everyone

I agree with Vancouver Anonymous: Photograph the police ! They are filming you , videotaping you, observing you at all times now because of the increased paranoia and fear being generated by the propaganda spew of our so-called leaders. Turn it around! Use your cam to shoot the Cops wherever you are : in your community , on the streets, on the highways, wherever in the nation! Document them, and if hassled, document their faces! Only by making them aware that citizens will record their violent activity, can cop behaviour be altered.

The G20 Cops in Toronto were primed for a fight: they were itching for one, and they promoted one. Whether the Black Bloc was infiltrated or not is a side issue ; what matters is that armed cops itch to use their power, and when peaceful protesters are referred to as "thugs" by their leaders, and cops see all citizens as "thugs" to be stopped, they will use whatever tools at their disposal to beat the unarmed citizenry down.

In regards to the issue of

In regards to the issue of the burning police cars, CBC News reported between 6:00 and 6:30 pm on Saturday that the police had informed them that the cars were left at those locations as "decoys".

Apologist article

 Your article reads like one long apology for the vandals and criminals that committed crimes this weekend. There may well be police violence and brutality going on, but your message is undermined by your obvious bias. You say: "On Saturday, there was no sign of protester violence, among the 25, 000 plus people who took to the streets, contrary to what many corporate media reports are conveying." Followed by: "A few banks, franchises and corporations had their windows smashed in symbolic shows of property damage.[...]A number of police cars were set on fire." Perhaps you aren't familiar with the definition of violence: "exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse (as in warfare effecting illegal entry into a house)" - http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/violence Violence need not be against another human being. Clearly, there were numerous violent acts committed over the weekend. Also, what is a "symbolic show of property damage"? Symbolizing what? You have insight into the intentions of all those who damaged property? Regarding the police cars, you say: "They were abandoned in the middle of intersections beforehand, and stripped of all their equipment by police--the cars were discovered to have been damaged previously, which led to reports that the police had purposefully left the cars there as bait, hoping to tempt protesters to set the cars on fire, in order to justify their own violent acts." Led to reports by whom? It couldn't have been the morons who set the cars on fire, as if they had known about the police officers' devious plot they wouldn't have fallen for it, I assume. Regardless, what difference does it make if it was left there to "tempt protestors to set the cars on fire"? Are these people not rational adults? All it takes for them to destroy property is for them to get the chance to do so? I pass by property unsupervised all the time, occasionally even an unattended police car, and amazingly am not tempted to set it ablaze. You then say "Later accounts led many to believe that the fires themselves were set by undercover police, or agents provocateurs." Again, I'm not saying this isn't possible, but accounts by whom? Is there any evidence to suggest that's true, or is it just added in to feed the argument that all violence and destruction must be the fault of the police, and amongst the thousands of protestors on the streets none of them can simply be low-life thugs. You'd do more to further your agenda if you condemned the violent action outright rather than made excuses for it and blamed the police.

your focus is status quo

People are being illegally searched, detained, harassed, intimidated, illegally arrested (mass arrests are illegal, as the National Post themselves pointed out yesterday), sexually assaulted, denied access to a lawyer or a phone call, or food and water. People are not having their belongings returned, including passports. People are being beaten up and put in solitary confinement because of their assumed sexual orientation. People are being thrown into unmarked vans. Police are fabricating charges against long-time community organizers and refusing to let them contact their families.

I am reporting what many of the corporate media are not. It's attempt to restore balance to reporting. I do not claim to be unbiased, and I truly do not believe that any journalist can or should.

If, given the abuses listed above, which are taking place in Toronto, Canada, as we speak, you still wish to take your lead from the corporate media and focus almost solely on defining violence to include vandalism, that is your prerogative.

Further reading:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19928

http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/conditions-g20-dentention-centre-are-i...

http://www.mediacoop.ca/story/community-organizers-thrown-unmarked-polic...

well of course it's my perogative

I'm not discounting those events, and if they are occurring certainly you should report on them, and do your best to "restore balance". By all means. My main point is appearing to be apologetic for the vandals/criminals (whoever they may be) undermines your message, because it makes some of the less left-leaning, less sympathetic, readers - those who I assume you want to educate (no need to "preach to the choir", so to speak), lump you in with the rest of the "nuts" - smashing stuff and burning cars to prove your point isn't very effective.

The first link didn't appear to offer any convincing evidence. That vandals and the police both wear combat boots - when both going out into a combat scenario - isn't very conclusive. I'm not sure why protesters find it so hard to believe some among them may be violent criminals. It's certainly possible.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the police had overstepped their bounds, acted violently, discriminated, sexually harassed etc. That stuff runs rampant in many police departments. Focus on that then, and spread the word, but you can't claim there are no bad apples in the entire protester camp.

 

I think everyone's actions

I think everyone's actions were appalling, not only the police force's.  And ironically, if the police DIDN'T do their job, and some kind of tragedy occured, everyone would be in up in arms, asking "why didn't the police do something to PREVENT this?"  Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

ee-dee-ots

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-CA
X-NONE
X-NONE

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0cm;
mso-para-margin-right:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0cm;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

Fresh off the G20 “black block” riots in Toronto a few observations come to mind.

1.       They (the black blockers) are disorganized. There was no strategy that I could see and very little in the way of preparation. They had an entire year to get ready for this and the best they could come up with was a few hammers and some black clothing?

2.       Unless “break stuff” can be considered a guiding principle, they do not have one.

3.       Not only are they unprincipled and disorganized, whoever was in charge at that moment lacked even the ability to adapt and improvise as the situation developed. “Hmmm, let me see. We have control of a police car and there’s a Club Monaco over there that I’d really like to trash. Hmmm. Oh well, let’s just light the car on fire and throw a rock at the store.”

4. 

But all of that aside, they are never going to get anywhere until they are unified by a guiding principle and become organized. Sadly, the term “anarchist leader” being the oxymoron that it is, there will never be organization on the scale that they require.

But if they ever do get tired of losing they should look at the example of the SA in Germany during the 1930’s. The “Brown Shirts” as they were called first and foremost got paid for their efforts. They were also organized and consistent in their actions. They were anti-communist but they were anti-capitalist as well. Theirs was a true socialism: that which places people and country above all else.

Apologetics for Fascism

"But if they ever do get tired of losing they should look at the example of the SA in Germany during the 1930’s. The 'Brown Shirts' as they were called first and foremost got paid for their efforts. They were also organized and consistent in their actions. They were anti-communist but they were anti-capitalist as well. Theirs was a true socialism: that which places people and country above all else."

I actually had to read this a few times to convince myself that I wasn't hallucinating.  This person is either woefully ignorant of the history of Nazi Germany or is simply a Fascist.

"Theirs was a true socialism"[!!!]: It bears mentioning that "National Socialism" (i.e. Nazi Fascism) has absolutely nothing to do with real Socialism or Anarchism, of any variety or "tendency". Anarchism, in particular, values personal freedom and social solidarity, which are the exact antitheses of Nazi Fascism.

While Hitler's paid thugs of the SA ("Storm Troopers") were busy terrorizing, beating and murdering real socialists in the 1920's and early 1930's, along with anybody else who opposed them, as well as those deemed racially "inferior" (Jews, Roma, Slavs), anarchists and others were resisting the impending fascist state while often paying for it with their lives.  Before their leadership were murdered in an intra-Nazi party feud, SA Storm Troopers guarded the new concentration camps where the Nazis sent their political and racial enemies.  Eventually, the camps themselves were taken over by Himmler's SS, which replaced the SA as the Fascist state's hired thugs.  After taking state power, the Nazi leadership saw that the SA street thugs had outlived their usefulness as an instrument of paramilitary (pre-state) terror, to be replaced by a smooth-functioning and disciplined state security apparatus, which could apply Nazi terror on a more organized and concerted  basis.

Stating that the "brown shirts" were anti-capitalist is a deceitful claim.  Fascists sometimes employ anti-capitalist rhetoric, but once in power, the rhetoric gets shelved and the full power of the state is used against anybody challenging it or the ruling classes that it serves.

Frankly, I don't particularly appreciate having to view such apologetics for fascism at the same time as my friends and comrades are being subjected to the fascism of the Canadian state and Toronto police thugs.
 

Ignorance

People lose their rights in the midst of a riot peaceful or not! For the peaceful protesters they should of left and come back later when the heat died down, because they chose to stay that is why they were arrested. 

During the protests and Riots in Toronto  the Police acted just in every movement. They cracked down on huge crowds because of what happened earlier in the day. To say that the Police started the riots and burnt their own cars is absolutely ridiculous. When interviewed some protestors did not even know what they were protesting and others who I interviewed by many different reporters who asked the same question their stories changed and made it seem like the police where treating everyone so badly as they went down the line of reporters. For EXAMPLE in the detention center 3 reporters interviewed one women who in the first interview said that she was given water about 5 times which by the third interview was once, and in the first interview she was fed three times and by the last interview she wasn't fed at all.

You can protest and not agree with the G8 and the G20 thats not what matters everyone can have their own opinion on that matter. However when it comes down the riots and how the Police treated everyone so badly take a look at it in their shoes, step back and look at them being beating over the head with a long stick and just standing there. Take a look what the men and women of law enforcement deal with on a day to day basis, look at the stress that puts on their friends and family, and dare say "fuck the police" dare say that the Police caused the riots because of their presence, and that they had undercover officers starting the riots and burning their own cars. Those are ignorant comments made by uniformed people. 

If the police do nothing to stop something it is their fault it happened, but if the police use preventive measures to stop things before they happen they are using unreasonable force. 

And to compare the Canadian government to the Nazis, that is a highly ignorant and disrespectful statement. Canada is nothing like Nazi Germany, and these people who made these statements I say should have payed attention in High School, or maybe should go read a history book and get their facts straight before making stupid comments. People forget how good we actually have it, how much freedoms and rights we have in Canada, unlike in Nazi Germany where the Jewish and the people from the none"Aryan Race" had nothing. 

To look at this from a different perspective, Think about this whole thing rationally. For those who had issues with cost of security and the tax dollars spent, think about how much NOW has to be spent to replace the Police cars marked and unmarked that were damaged, to fix all damaged government property, what a great way to get you points across, " I'm upset that the government spent so much money on the G20, so lets make them spend more" how stupid does that sound. NOW who is the joke really on. 

 

Dear Ignorance, Plz read a history textbook...

1. Nazi Germany is a fair comparison, especially when looking at what we did our Native population. Cheap comments attacking someone else's education level, bet you did that in high school too  Maybe if you had done some independant learning you would know about the genocide of our Native Peoples. (They don't really teach about it in the Ont mandatory grade 10 Can. history class) If you for one second beleive that Canada's gov't is innocent and "we have it so good" then I hope you seriously wake up.

2.As a Canadian citizen, I have the right to be critical of all our peace officers (that is what theyre called, har har) and our government. This is how a democratic society is suppose to work,  lobbying (peacefully, as the majority of protesters did at the g20) to your MP's/gov't about what you think is important, This is how it's suppose to be done. You obviously were not in the streets of downtown Toronto during the g20. 

3. Look into Montebello before you call people ignorant. Here is a quick easy link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg&NR=1

4. The adaptation of the law that quietly went through before the g20, shows how important it is that we exercise our rights as Canadians before theyre gone.

5. You can not arrest people on your own morals or values (shoulda, coulda, woulda, doesnt make standing peacefully in a pubic place illegal). Sorry but don't think for a second that I blame the police. They were enforcing new laws, obeying orders, being scared and trying to make extra money. Doing their job (as sad a career choice as it might be). I am mad at Harper because he is the one who made everything happen. Many of the police I spoke with said they would rather be at home. 

6. As a protester I, more then the average apathetic/follow the pack Canadian, understand more about what the police have to deal with. They are sent to deal with the fustrated masses, whlle the real power hides. They hear everything that is meant for Harper and the other g20 leaders. They were the face of this summit.

7. Do you really think that the people who were protesting the enormous security budget are the ones who smashed the corporate/franchise, bank windows and burned the cop cars? You want to be rational then get on it!  Anarchists and violent protesters take on a whole different opinion and style of protest, they beleive (as I do) that the corporations and bankers are the ones controlling gov't. So that is where they direct their anger. Personally I don't see the broken windows or spray paint cutting into profit enough to do any damage to any of the targets. Which is why I dont take on that kind of mentality despite being very angry at the mass exploitation.

 

Hope you reply it would be nice to hear what you have to say!

 

the joke is on you because...

the police already admitted they were decoy cars.... they left the first two , in the streets for hours burning, giving the media a show to justify the budget.... 

in a heated tense situation where emotions and energy run high on both sides, allowing people to smash the cars only made things worse. it gave an outlet to many angry fustrated Canadians who cant help but see that as an oppurtunity, incited others to join into violent behaviour, melted the front of steve's music and was a public healthy and safety hazard....  doesnt make sense that it went unchecked for hours.... doesnt make sense how they dealt with  peacefully assembled people (they were ordered to empty the streets on sat night, which placed many innocent (if not 98% of the people) bystanders, protesters, media and observers in a position they should have never been in.

 

i still want to know what the police were doing when the abandoned cop cars were left for hours? mustve been too busy arresting law abiding citizens and world media and checking id and harrassing independant media.

The Erosion of Rights- What RightsÉ

George Carlin tells it like it is-

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWiBt-pqp0E&NR=1

Demand a Public Inquiry on the Secret Act

Demand a Public Inquiry on the Secret Act:  The unprecedented secret instituting of the Ontario Public Works Protection Act (regulation 233/10) which extended the area for extraordinary police powers during the G8 and G20 gathering in Toronto IS A THE BIG ISSUE!  Lawyer Howard Morton said on the Real News Network that a public inquiry is needed to understand, document, and challenge the regulation that was passed by a handful of Ontario cabinet without the public or lawyers knowing about it (except the lawyers for the cabinet).  That this has occurred is a sign of things to come.

$1.2 billion not only buys fake lakes, but new oppressive technologies (sound and water canons etc), expertise in crowd control (new strategies for oppressing populations) and extends militarisation into our cities.  Democracy is dead.  

One Sided Reporting

Very one sided report. You have no idea why the police chose to raid certain groups & what kind of intell they had on them. Perhaps they were treated like terrorists due to the numerous terrorist threats received prior to and during the Summit. You have no idea what may have been prevented and how many lives may have been saved. Enough police bashing by media. Thank them for putting their lives at risk to save yours.

"On Saturday, there was no

"On Saturday, there was no sign of protester violence, among the 25, 000 plus people who took to the streets, contrary to what many corporate media reports are conveying. A few banks, franchises and corporations had their windows smashed in symbolic shows of property damage"

It's reporting like this- and the reluctance or refusal by many activists to condemn the Black Bloc, who DO wngage in violent protest- which makes it difficult for me to take this article seriously.

And your hooting/holllering about 'Corporate Media', creating an us-versus-them kind of argument which can best be summed up as "We're not brainwashed! Everyone else is!"

Is moral cowardice sexually attractive?

In the wake of a number of tremedously insensitive comments, I'd just like to label the whole whack of you cowards. 

Well, just the whole whack of you citizens who are more worried about those decoy cars and a couple of storefronts that are being completely bailed out by more of your tax dollars right now (and were intended to be all along, I might add, because like the decoy cars, they were left unboarded in the middle of the downtown core on purpose) than you are about your fellow citizens, and their Charter rights.

Yes, the Black Blocs practice violent protest (Black Bloc is a *tactic*, not a group, you idiots!  Of course they're not organized, they came out individually to engage in a TACTIC) .  No, nobody is 'glossing over' that, it's just not central to what this article is about, for Chrissake.  When I write an article about Space Travel, I don't tend to discuss the monkeys more than the humans.  It's not the effing point.   I think you'll find that the vast majority of activists don't let those stupid kids bother them, because there's little to nothing they can do about them.  When I catch one at it, I tend to tell him how stupid I think his idea of vandalism as radicalization is.  I've been threatened by them more than once. 

Who sanctions their behaviour?  Well, clearly the police do, because they gave them a few storefronts and police cars to play with (and even helped them along by joining in, undercover, as Agents Provocateur), and then you cowards, who don't go to these things and obviously don't know SHIT about what happens at them, did just what your part of the Miami Model is; you came in here like a bunch of gutless 'useful idiots' and spewed your weak cowardly pablum all over the place.

Let me point something out to you:  The anarchists, obnoxious as they are, smashed up some property.  That is against the law, making them criminals who should be prosecuted to its full extent.  In order not to be accused of 'glossing over,' you intellectual midgets, I will repeat it in caps:  THEY ARE CRIMINALS AND SHOULD BE ARRESTED AND TRIED.  Guess what?  They arrested 900 people, and very, very few, if any, of the people they arrested were involved in any vandalism.  The police DID NOT ARREST THEM.  THEY STOOD BY AND WATCHED THEM, JOINING IN AS PROVOCATEURS, AND ABANDONED CARS AND STOREFRONTS TO THEM, and best of all, YOU BOUGHT IT.

Then, after spending a billion dollars of YOUR MONEY (when the UK had one of these in London last year and spent under 30 million), they bailed out the damaged property owners, as they had intended to all along.  Not only are you moral cowards (because as long, I guess, as you aren't exercising your rights, you apparently don't need them), you're also the biggest bunch of gullible suckers I've ever seen.

So we've established that the Black Blocs, *criminals that they are*, didn't physically hurt *anyone*, but neither did they get held to account by the authorities you are actually giving a blank cheque for abuse to. Furthermore, we've established that there were about 150 of them, at the most (with probably 15 or 20 active at any time) in a crowd that may have been as large as SIXTY THOUSAND that was acting COMPLETELY PEACEFULLY.

The police, on the other hand, beat up a blind man and an old guy, punched reporters, hospitalized people, ran over somebody with a horse (hospitalizing her), violated the charter rights of thousands of Canadians, and sexually assaulted and verbally abused innocent people in a detention centre made up of DOG CAGES, all for an actual billion dollars of your own misappropriated money, DURING AN ECONOMIC CRISIS, to protect people who just further misappropriated billions of dollars of your own money, and sat calmly inside that cordon weaving canoe seats and eating chocolate paddles, taking pictures of each other with each other's wives.

I strongly suggest that you A: grow a pair of balls, and B: apply for a degree in Rocket Science, you cowards.

 

@Sigma here here

@Sigma here here

G20

Where can I get a 'fuck the G20" t-shirt? That's exactly how I feel about the whole darn sham.................let those so called leaders meet via the internet or a teleconference - stop wasting our tax dollars - and let us all start to prepare for a future federal election where we will have our 'kick at the cat". We won't need to hide behind batons and pepper spray, we'll just need a pencil and a ballot. While there may be some 'bad apples' not all police officers were happy to be used in the manner in which they were by the so called 'leaders'. Hopefully in the meantime all those MPs who have disappeared with out hardly a comment will stand up and be counted and show some true leadership - where are you?

The site for the Toronto local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.