Vancouver Statement of Support for Toronto G8/G20 Arrestees
Background:We, a broad-based network of Vancouver civil society organizations and individuals, call for the immediate release of all those currently being held as part of the G8/G20 Summit police operations, and for all charges against community organizers to be dropped.
Long-time organizers, many of whom were arrested pre-emptively while nowhere near protests, are being particularly targeted; all must be freed immediately.
While G8/G20 leaders met behind a steel cage and an unprecedented 1-billion dollar police state operation, on Saturday June 26th and Sunday June 27th, we witnessed police violence in the city of Toronto on a scale never before experienced. A total of nearly 1000 people were arrested, the largest number in any protest in Canadian history. This weekend revealed to us all the daily violence of police and prisons as they are experienced every day for Indigenous communities, people of colour, low income neighborhoods, street-involved youth, queer and trans people.
According to news reports, video, and firsthand accounts, protest participants, journalists, and random passersby experienced indiscriminate arrests, police beatings that led to broken bones and hospitalizations, illegal searches and seizures, threats of gang rape, physically invasive body cavity “searches” conducted on young women by male officers, lack of food, water, adequate heating or medical care for serious injuries, denial of access to legal council, and extended random detentions. Several community organizers were pre-emptively arrested while asleep in their beds and were nowhere near the protests.
Such tactics are indicative of a heightened Orwellian police state seeking to justify a bloated security budget. In addition to freeing those currently detained and dropping all charges, an impartial public inquiry into the conduct of the police is essential.
The government wants to have the power to crack down on dissent because the G8/G20 policies are going to create it.
Tens of thousands of labour, anti war, feminist, migrant justice, Indigenous rights, anarchist, environmental justice, anti-oppression, anti capitalist, socialist, student, and community-based activists took to the streets to stand up to the criminal policies of the G8/G20. The reasons they did so – Indigenous self determination; environmental justice; a world free of militarization; income equity and community control over resources; migrant justice; gender, queer, disability, and reproductive rights – are just as relevant today and tomorrow as they were this past weekend.
The Harper government knows that the new G8/G20 austerity measures are bound to cause unrest, and seeks to quell public dissent in advance by increasing draconian state powers.
This was the largest security operation in Canadian history, and the largest bill for summit security yet. To put the security costs in context: The Pittsburgh G20 Summit security budget was 30 million dollars in 2009. In Toronto, 1 billion was spent to keep the people of Canada under tight police control as world leaders decided to let banks off scot-free and steal from the public instead.
As the lessons of history show us, dissent is expected given the goals and outcomes of G8/G20 meetings: further erosion of basic rights, and increased divide between rich and poor via austerity measures. The attempt by the mayor of Toronto and police PR to focus media attention on so-called ‘illegitimate’ protests – rather than on the violence of police and of the summit itself – attempts to distract us from the real violence: cutting deficits in half while letting banks off the hook. Naomi Klein writes, “How else can we interpret the G20’s final communiqué, which includes not even a measly tax on banks or financial transactions, yet instructs governments to slash their deficits in half by 2013. This is a huge and shocking cut, and we should be very clear who will pay the price: students who will see their public educations further deteriorate as their fees go up; pensioners who will lose hard-earned benefits; public-sector workers whose jobs will be eliminated. And the list goes on. These types of cuts have already begun in many G20 countries including Canada, and they are about to get a lot worse.”
The G8/G20 countries and their criminal corporations manufacture most of the weapons on the planet, profit from war, subsidize oil corporations such as BP, and are responsible for displacing millions from their homes and lands into poverty each year.
The government is being heavily criticized from all sides both for the violent policies of the G8/G20 and for this unprecedented security budget that turned Toronto into a rights-free zone. To hide from responsibility, the state wants to turn the responsibility around and scapegoat those who unapologetically take a stand to protect communities from the daily violence of G8/G20 policies. We stand in support of all of the brave people who organized and took to the streets to protest the G8/G20 in Toronto, most notably the organizers being targeted, who are our allies and friends.
As we saw in the streets of Toronto, in preventative detentions of respected long-time organizers, and in mass roundups and police violence, the state wants to expand its power against the people. The government is targeting community organizers, including several people of colour. These targeted arrests and politically motivated, malicious charges are intended to make us afraid to speak up, and to silence the dissent the state knows will follow from the undemocratic decisions and austerity measures passed at the G20 meetings that will affect us all.
VANCOUVER STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY FOR TORONTO G8/G20 ARRESTEES
· We call for the immediate release of all the demonstrators being held, most notably of the much-loved and nationally respected community organizers who are being targeted by politically motivated malicious arrests.
· We call for all these politically motivated charges against organizers to be dropped immediately.
· G8/G20 policies affect us all, and Vancouver stands in solidarity with all those being held in Toronto.
Statements of Support:
Ian Angus, Professor of Humanities, former Director of Canadian Studies at Simon Fraser University, author of books on Canadian political culture A Border Within (1997) and Identity and Justice (2009):
“Canada is unravelling. The social and economic security net that was constructed by the struggles of working people and community organizations is being dismantled by the neo-liberal global economy that the G8/G20 represents. Homelessness, unemployment and marginalization are on the increase. Canadian society wants to be able to debate these matters, to have full information available to them, and to be able to present their views to the wider public. Without such a national and international debate, citizens are held captive by the private interests of wealthy corporations. The role of the police in this situation is significant. Recent events in Toronto suggest that the police are acting solely to protect the agenda of the wealthy few and the Harper government that is their tool. Canadians must stand together with their international allies to oppose the use of police repression to silence the exploration of alternative socio-economic forms and policies.”
Dr. Jeff Derksen, Associate Professor, Simon Fraser University:
“In order to comply with Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile,” the Toronto Police must release all of the community members swept into arrests during the G20 situation.”
Endorsed by: Brad Cran, poet laureate of Vancouver; Simon Fraser University Teaching Support Staff Union (TSSU) Social Justice Committee; Council of Canadians (Delta/Richmond chapter); Meredith Quartermain, award-winning BC poet; Ian Angus, Professor of Humanities, former Director of Canadian Studies at Simon Fraser University, author of books on Canadian political culture A Border Within (1997) and Identity and Justice (2009); Jerry Zaslove, Professor and founding faculty member of Simon Fraser University, Gillian Jerome, Professor at University of British Columbia and award-winning author; Jeff Derksen, SFU Professor, critic, and poet, Stephen Collis, SFU Professor and Poet, Larissa Lai, Professor at the University of British Columbia and award-winning author, Anthony Fenton, Lawrence Boxall of Independent Jewish Voices British Columbia, Rita Wong, Professor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and award-winning poet, Mark Leier, Professor of History at SFU,
None of us are free until all of us are free!
For more info, email: vansolidarity@gmail.com
How you can help: Support the Toronto 1000: Till every last one is free and all charges are dropped. Please send short statements of support to: vansolidarity@gmail.com
You can send bail/legal support funds via paypal by clicking on the 'support us!' link at the bottom right of this page: http://g20.torontomobilize.org/
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