Toronto police officer follows through on threat to arrest G20 activist for blowing bubbles during a mass detention in Toronto’s Parkdale community.
Click here to find out about the Bubbles for Peace rally, being held on July 17th, in Queen’s Park at noon. Come join us as we blow bubbles against police brutality and blow bubbles for peace and justice.
Filmed by Nazrul Islam.
For more visit www.therealnews.com
by Jamie Rivet
EXCERPTS
Many activists from within the animal rights community questioned our involvement in the resistance. They cast doubt on our role in this coalition of movements, both in terms of our relevance and our efficacy. They were also quick to side with the fascist police state in condemning the property destruction of the Black Bloc. I am tempted to state my visceral reaction to these traitors, but I’ll use great restraint and instead give my reasons for their treason.
It is foolish indeed to believe that those who manage the global economy are not connected to the issue of animal rights. G20 states promote and subsidize animal exploitation in each of its forms: vivisection, food, clothing, etc. But beyond that, they are threatening all animal life on earth, human and non human, by deifying economic growth as the single most important parameter of progress. Just out of self interest– if the only life you care about is your own– one has reason enough to resist G20. Some activist’s could not connect the dots between G20 and exploitation though.
And as I explained in part 1, we were effective: we did reach other activists and we did get the animal question heard outside of the resistance. But this question of effectiveness comes up time after time so I will say this too. Anytime you are able to take action, then take it. Anytime you can speak up for animal rights, speak up! The only bad activism is not taking any action. We need more voices and actions for animals, not less.
Many activists were also quick to condemn the “violent” actions of those who destroyed property, especially the Black Bloc. Such people do not realize that they have somewhere along the way sold their souls to the quasi gods of consumerism and have adopted a philosophy which venerates private property. These people seem to value things– non sentient objects– more than earthlings, more than the living feeling animals of this planet. In any case, their empathy for inanimate objects is irrational and undeserved. Ideally the animal rights community would have greater solidarity; we would support those with different approaches and philosophies from our own. Certainly we are always free to examine the strategy others use for liberation– we are free to discuss these things and argue in private. But we need a unified front when facing exploiters, when dealing with the outside world.
TO READ THIS ARTICLE IN FULL (PART ONE AND PART TWO) VISIT: http://negotiationisover.com/tag/g20-toronto/
The Art of Oppression and surveillance, as seen in video at:
http://artthreat.net/2010/06/the-g20-summerblockbuster/
That the hundreds (at last count 900+) of G20 protesters (and random civilians) held in pens at a detention centre in Toronto also happen to be extras in a former movie studio should come as no surprise to those who took part in this summer’s biggest blockbuster hit. This production note is but one piece of a larger spectacle of fascism recently carried out in the streets of Toronto.
While tens of thousands of us peacefully marched and did so as representatives of every strata of diverse Canadian society, we witnessed the most cynical, unprovoked and violent police and state actions rarely—if ever—seen at such scale in this country. Walking down one of the main Toronto arteries yesterday as the march got under way, I was horrified to see an elderly man beaten by six riot police. Several friends—mostly organizers of civil society groups and independent mediamakers—have been arrested and many have been beaten and have had their personal belongings searched, including cell phones (still others had all their pictures and video deleted or destroyed). In the detention centre, reports are emerging of sexual harassment and the segregation of queer activists and countless abuses of the Geneva Convention.
Standing on College street watching a procession of dozens of dark-tinted vans go by full with riot police, we watched as a man walked toward us calmly and was violently seized and dragged away by ten riot police, a scene reminiscent of so many Hollywood horror films.
Waiting yesterday for our buses to leave for Montreal—far outside the downtown melee—we were photographed by undercover police and police accomplices (see photo below and video in this post). Indy media centres where our friends have been tirelessly covering the protests have been raided, other spaces where activists merely found shelter were violently raided too, between 2AM and 4AM. We have dozens of friends—none of who participated in any form of violence—who are incarcerated or missing.
This spectacle of civil-society-gone-wrong is a fine-tuned production that credits the city of Toronto, the provincial and federal governments, the police and corporate and national media who have eagerly worked together to serve up the Canadian public with a narrative that is so far from reality it is indeed a fine work of fiction.
The lasting picture, the dominant and enduring index of what was overwhelmingly a peaceful demonstration against the illegitimate, unaccountable and non-transparent elite G20 group, is that of marauders, a city in chaos and dissent as articulated in acts of mindless violence. And this mainstream hit costs a bundle.
Discrediting Dissent with tax dollars
The 1.5 billion dollar summer blockbuster has been paid for by taxpayers and has the best channels of distribution – ensuring no Canadian set of eyeballs or ears is left unaffected by the dramatic tale of wanton destruction, devoid as it is of political will.
t is no surprise then, to hear that the police cars that were set afire were left on purpose by the police themselves, to eke out some real action from protesters. After all, every dramatic narrative needs a dramatic image to provide a theatrical arc in the storyline. The burning police cars are indeed burned into the Canadian psyche – a powerful and enduring signifier of lawlessness and terror.
Yesterday, we happened upon a gentleman sitting in a bar feverishly finessing some stills from the G20 Blockbuster. He told us he was a photographer for the right-wing and pro-business (and pro-G20) Canadian newspaper the National Post. As I looked over his shoulder and complimented him on his skillful rendering of the burning police car, I asked if he intended to report on the other 99% of the day’s demonstrations – the ones that included grandmothers, lawyers, doctors, organized labour, women’s rights groups, Human Rights advocates, First Nations’ groups, artists, teachers, and more. “Maybe,” he replied, “but this is a powerful image.”
The vilification and de-legitimizing of activists in this country has reached a crescendo at the G20 protests and the state has scored big in its production of power and oppression. With an army of actors (some 20,000 well-paid police and even more secret agents), tens of thousands of extras in the role of peaceful demonstrators, a starring cast of black-clad “anarchists,” along with explosions, fires, helicopters, mountain bikes, rubber bullets, tear gas and other real props, the fascist production, “G20 Protest Turns Ugly,” has been a spectacle of unparallelled artistry, technology and careful orchestration.
But for those looking for the non-fiction version of this blockbuster, you need to turn off the despicable CBC coverage [note: it did get better since posting this] and other mainstream media and look for the under-funded indy versions of this tale – the ones that do not enjoy the massive distribution the Hollywood-style production enjoys, but serve up something much more real, much more diverse, and much more interested in revealing the machinations of oppression.
By Ezra Winton
Art Threat: Culture & Politics
To see this in its original home: http://artthreat.net/2010/06/the-g20-summerblockbuster/
Jaggi Singh, a long time community organizer and activist, turned himself in to the Toronto Police Service (TPS) on the morning of Tuesday, July 6th, 2010. His voluntary surrender to the TPS is in response to a warrant issued for his arrest, with charges of criminal conspiracy associated with the G20 summit in Toronto.
In this interview with Susy Alvarez Pocasangre of A-infos Radio Project, Singh speaks of his decision to turn himself in, and discusses the criminalization of anti-capitalist dissent, G20 resistance, jail solidarity and the importance of community organizing.
Listen Here: Interview with Jaggi Singh – G20 Resistance: Moving Forward, Fighting Back
[podcast]http://www.radio4all.net/files/susy.pocasangre@gmail.com/1214-2-JaggiSingh_July42010_64Kbps.mp3[/podcast]
To learn more on Jaggi Singh and his recent arrest, visit:
Toronto Media Co-op
G20 arrests: “We’re still at a raw moment.” Jaggi Singh speaks out before turning himself in
No On Is Illegal
A statement of support and solidarity by No One Is Illegal-Montreal & Solidarity Across Borders
CBC
Activist Jaggi Singh arrested for G20 protest
Toronto Star
Activist Surrenders to face G20 Charges
On Tuesday, June 29, Naomi Klein made a surprise appearance at Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QUAIA)’s Pride in Our Politics Cabaret. Making the links between the police repression of protest over the G20 and the slanderous attacks that groups such as QUAIA have experienced, Klein explained: “There has been a very powerful attack on freedom of expression in this country. A McCarthyite campaign against people who fall outside of the Harper government’s version of what we should be saying or doing.”
The quality of this video is not great – but the audio is worth a listen.
On his first day as a new resident to Toronto, Dan Hamilton was a bystander during a protest when he was caught with his boyfriend in a mass arrest for “breaching the peace”. Held for approximately 26 hours, the eighteen-year-old was let out at 3 a.m. on Monday, June 28th, 2010, where rabbletv caught up with him for his story.
Interview by Tor Sandberg.
I attended the peaceful protest march in response to the G20 on June 26, 2010 in Toronto, Ontario and continued with the peaceful protest into the night. The movement was huge, powerful and filled with amazing energy. The messages were strong and creatively expressed through signs, music, dance, poetry and pure solidarity. However, I was saddened by the media’s shallowness of coverage and obsessive focus on the acts of vandalism by a small group to the complete exclusion of the peaceful majority who carried a strong and extremely important message to the world, so I decided to share another perspective with the footage and images that I captured during the weekend. I purposely left out the broken windows and damaged police cars that I encountered along the way because they do not represent anything that the majority were protesting or experiencing. There was a horrible disservice committed against democracy during the weekend by the mainstream media, by oversized and overreaching security presence, and by the unjustifiable fear that was instilled in the minds of the public by the government. These courageous protesters should be applauded for being actively engaged in their democracy and seeking justice for the marginalized. They are the ones who are truly looking out for us, for our children and for future generations.
By Michael Napiorkowski
