I assume by now everyone has seen these. These images are posted in comments on these two threads, but I thought they deserved highlighting.
Photo, photo, photo, photo.
Reader Scott M tells me the final arrest count was 800 people. To listen to Toronto Chief of Police William Blair try to justify rounding up and arresting innocent people, go to The Current later today. Scott - hardly a radical! just a guy who values democracy - says it's jaw-dropping.
A Facebook friend is angry about the use of the words "police state". He comes from a country that has seen the real deal in action. But fascism is not an on-or-off proposition. Just like democracy is a process, a continuum, so is fascism. Police and governments will always abuse power. If we allow that abuse to stand without comment, without inquiry, without protest, we take a step down a terrible slippery slope.
9 comments:
Video compilation here.
Toronto Media Co-Op (G20 and G8 Summit Protest Reporting)
Rabble: Eighteen-year-old detainee recounts experience of being held inside G8/20 police cage for 26 hours - on his first day living in Toronto!!!
Watch that video. It's wild.
"Your rights don't apply here."
The show is up (look on the right hand column under "Featured Audio").
The interview with Bill Blair starts just after the 8 minute mark.
Am I overreacting?
I just listened. NO. You are not over-reacting. That is nauseating. Enraging!
As Canada's Democracy Trembles, a New Global Architecture Emerges
by Anthony Fenton, Inter Press Service
Several blocks north of the protests that were the assumed cause of the [Saturday] transit shutdown, IPS observed a police officer conducting random searches of pedestrians. Asked why he was doing so, the officer, who refused to identify himself, replied, "Do you want to be responsible for a terrorist attack?"
The officer stated that the transit system was shut down due to a "terrorist threat" posed by anarchists, that a cache of Molotov cocktails had been discovered, and that the crude weapons were "all over the city".
A spokesperson for the G8/G20 Integrated Security Unit later contradicted the police officer, stating in a phone interview, "There's no terrorist threat." ...
While security forces did not step in to stop the bloc protesters, late on Saturday night, approximately 150 peaceful protesters were placed in detention after staging a sit-in.
***
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Toronto Star
When Police Stick to Phony Script
Some good photos at UK Daily Mail
The folks at Queen and Spadina deserved it! They were singing out of key!
I never claimed I could sing.
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