TORONTO 11:40pm, June 26 — G20 Police have threatened to mass arrest 300 peaceful protesters outside the Novotel hotel on The Esplanade in Toronto, according to a demonstrator at the protest. Since 10:30pm they have been snatching protesters one-by-one from the crowd and “the rest of us are just waiting to be arrested,” said the experienced activist, who has asked not to be named.
Protesters were sitting outside the hotel peacefully, when dozens of police in full riot gear with teargas guns marched in from the east side of the narrow street and then on the west side, enclosing the protesters.
According to the demonstrator, most of the protesters are young people who have little previous experience in demonstrations and have not been involved in any previous G20 demonstrations on June 26 or earlier. Moreover they have no legal information because they were not expecting any kind of trouble. “These are simply members of the public who want to make their voices heard,” the demonstrator said. The peaceful protesters include many who joined a march which earlier proceeded down Yonge Street after being brutally forced out of what was supposed to be the “free speech zone” at Queen’s Park.
They have been chanting “Open the lines, let us out!” “Whose streets? Our streets!” and “Peaceful protest, peaceful protest.”
The protesters are demonstrating outside the Novotel on The Esplanade where one day earlier hotel workers began a legal strike.
Protesters are asking for any support that people can provide them, especially through communicating this story which has gone under-reported in mainstream media. Police continue to take people one-by-one from the crowd.
Update 12:46am, June 27: At least one busload of people has been already taken away by the police. At this time, about 80 protesters remain, waiting to be arrested.
SEE ALSO 11pm UPDATE ON TORONTO STAR BLOG: http://thestar.blogs.com/g20/
FOR UPDATES BY THE MINUTE SEE TCMN TWITTER FEED: http://twitter.com/g20mobilize
Israel Flaunts Int’l Law, Attacks Civilian Aid Flotilla
Ghadeer Malek – BASICS Issue #20 (July/Aug 2010)
The Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla that sailed to break the illegal siege on Gaza was not discrete nor was it intended to be. Israel, with the help of its complicit supporters of which Canada tops the list, has been trying to massage the media to make itself appear like the victim. However, the violence enacted aboard the ships of the flotilla was a clear attack on international activists and civil society actors in Israel’s attempt to deter any future attempts at solidarity with Gaza. And to that end, they stopped at nothing.
Fully armed IDF soldiers boarded the flotilla ships at 4:00am on May 30. They killed 19 humanitarian activists, injured 50 and held another hostage 600+ unarmed civilians on international waters. It was clear that Israel not only behaved with complete disregard to international laws, but it is also asserting itself as an exception to any human rights code of conduct. Israel’s meting out of collective punishment that night extended far out into international waters with the threat clearly not being Hamas but anyone willing to speak out on Israel’s violence.
Forking Over More Pork to the Cops
by S. da Silva – BASICS Issue#20 (July / Aug 2010)
For a while, it seemed like the hosts of international summits like the G8 had finally learned their lesson from the 1999 “Battle of Seattle”, where massive protests of at least 50,000 people rocked the meeting of the World Trade Organization. The lesson was that international summits should be held in remote regions inaccessible to the people. The G8 Summits in Kananaskis, Alberta (2002), Sea Island, Georgia (2004), Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland (2005), or the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) meetings in Montebello, Quebec in 2007 all denied the anti-globalization movement of an urban terrain to besiege the closed meetings of the representatives of global capitalism, even long after it was clear that the anti-globalization movement had lost its steam and direction.
by Derek Rosin – BASICS Issue #20 (July/Aug 2010)
The British graffiti artist known as Banksy recently paid his first visit to Toronto, hitting our city with some of his signature stencil pieces.
The visit coincides with the release of a new film about the artist, Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Stylistically, Banksy’s work is quite different from the culture of hip-hop graffiti that has been the dominant form of street art for the past few decades. But like the paintings of his hip-hop cousins, Banksy’s work retains its subversive quality, partly because the very act of making this type of art is considered to be a crime.
by S. da Silva – BASICS Issue #20 (July/Aug 2010)
The economic crisis unfolding in Europe today is the crisis of a putrefying world imperialist system.
All across Europe, working people are being confronted with the concerted attack of the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the form of imposed “austerity measures”, which will result in raided pensions, job losses, slashed wages, and massive cuts to social security and the public sector.
The pretext for the wave of “austerity measures” now being imposed is what is being called Europe’s “sovereign debt crisis”. Most of the EU countries have total debts ranging from 50% to 115% of their GDP and annual budget deficits up to as high as 14% of GDP. By these measures, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland appear to be in the worst positions.
by Michael Perovic – BASICS Issue #20 (July/Aug 2010)
The April 20, 2010 explosion and failure of the blowout preventer on the British Petroleum (BP) owned oil-rig in the Gulf of Mexico has led to what is now clearly the largest oil spill disaster in United States history. As of the writing of this article, the geyser that was unleashed on the sea floor continues to spew its toxic crude oil into the surrounding ocean at an unknown rate that certainly runs at least into several tens of thousands of gallons daily.
The spill is not just the oil slick along the top of the water – there are particles of oil floating in various layers beneath the water’s surface in giant plumes that stretch for miles in all directions, draining the ocean of its oxygen levels and threatening to create “dead zones” – the complete collapse of the marine ecosystem in areas that stretch from the sea floor to the surface. The livelihoods and safety of people impacted and at health risk expands daily, stretching beyond the United States into Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
Toronto Police beat to death unarmed 18-year old in broad daylight at York University
by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan – BASICS Issue #20 (July/Aug 2010)
Running from the police is not a crime punishable by death in Canada. Yet this is the sentence 18-year-old Junior Alexander Manon received on the evening of May 5, 2010 when he ran from the police near York University in Toronto. And by looks of what became of the young Dominican teenager, it’s no surprise that youth like him run when confronted by Toronto police.
Around 6:30pm, Manon jumped out of a car and fled police after a random pull-over on Founders Road and Steeles. Police claim that Manon spontaneously collapsed and died of a heart attack while trying to run from them, despite witness testimonies and a pool of blood to suggest otherwise.
The other passenger of the vehicle reported that: “They beat him up, he was on the floor, he wasn’t resisting. Two officers on him, punching him in the face, one kicking him in the ribs… And then five more come and jump on him… He’s not that big for seven boy’dem [cops] to be on him like that.”
by Jamal Briggs and Yakira Hume – BASICS Issue #20 (July/Aug 2010)
March 22, 2010 marked the beginning of an agonizing two-week-long inquest into the murder of Alwy Al Nadhir, a young man murdered by Toronto Police in the fall of 2007.
Alwy’s family and the Justice for Alwy Campaign Against Police Brutality came into the Inquest with due scepticism.
The Inquest would not locate any culpability for Alwy’s murder; it was not a criminal trial.
In fact, the purpose of a Coroner’s Inquest is an inquiry into the manner and cause of an individual’s death. Information concerning the victim’s death is presented in order for the jury to determine the source and means of death (accident, homicide, natural, suicide or undetermined).
At base, the coroner’s inquest and its verdict are merely fact finding and statistical in essence.
We knew that justice through this process would not be had. What we didn’t know was the extent to which an allegedly unbiased and ‘scientific’ judicial proceeding would further extend the violence against Alwy, his friends, family and the community at large.
Canadian Humanitarian Appeal for the Relief of Tamils
Editorial Note: In response to the solidarity work of the Tamil human rights organization Canadian HART in Venezuela, SriLanka has extended its campaign of misinformation into the Bolivarian nation and across Latin America in an attempt to turn the Latin American people against the Tamil struggle for justice and liberation.
Supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution across the world were shocked when one of Venezuela’s most important public intellectuals, Eva Golinger, wrote a piece on May 15 referring to SriLanka as an “anti-imperialist” and “progressive”, despite its close military ties to Israel and the United States. Golinger, following the slanderous line of the SriLankan government intended to isolate and criminalize all Tamil activists, referenced Canadian HART as a front group of the now defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
The following public statement was written by Canadian HART to counter the campaign of disinformation being spread by SriLankan diplomats and taken up by the likes of Golinger. See basicsnews.ca for more information.
Canadian Humanitarian Appeal for Relief of Tamils (Canadian HART) both condemns and refutes the campaign of misinformation and intimidation being employed by the SriLankan government and it’s envoy to misrepresent Canadian HART’s international solidarity work in Venezuela.
By J.D. Benjamin – BASICS Issue #20 July/Aug 2010
Footage is released on the internet of fully armed police raiding a working class rooming house, brutally beating and terrorizing anyone in their path, and rounding up members of a minority group. It ends with a scene of unbelievable carnage and gore.
The latest Wikileak from Iraq or occupied Palestine? Nope. It’s the new music video for the song Born Free by M.I.A., an artist know for mixing radical politics and social commentary with her music.
Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., is a British musician, record producer, fashion designer, activist, and visual artist of Sri Lankan Tamil refugee origin. She blew up in 2008 when her song Paper Planes was used in the trailer for Pineapple Express and the movie Slum Dog Millionaire. She has been nominated for 2 Grammies and an Academy Award and placed on Time Magazine’s 2009 list of World’s Most Influential People.
