Opinion: Quick arrests quashed the expression of dissent
montrealgazette.com/news/Quick+arrests+quashe...
montrealgazette.comPosted Mar 19, 2014, 6:55 PM UTC
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montrealgazette.comI assume you are rolling your eyes at me for being pathetic. I’m not naive, I get the deal. But I ask you: If we have rights, then how come it is illegal to demonstrate unless we fill out the proper forms, within the proper deadlines, and submit them for approval to the proper authorities to ensure our constitutional rights to demonstrate are properly permitted?
I'm guessing the author is referring specifically to this:
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const//page-15.html#h-41
Here's a a counter-question: why hasn't this made its way to supreme court yet? If you are going to cite laws, courts are the places to fight your battles, not the yearly shit show (i.e. not peaceful) that is the anti-brutality protest, going back way before bylaw P-6.
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Anarchopanda is challenging the law in court, but it could take years.
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Answer me this: Do you believe we live in a democracy if opposing police killings of civilians and other injustices is now treated by the government as a tactical problem to be controlled, regulated and efficiently suppressed?
Yes, when it seems like the entire purpose of this annual "protest" is to throw shit at cops and destroy private & public property.
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Sure, we’ve been told that vandalism and violence at demonstrations are why there are restrictions on demonstrations. But as I’ve explained to the city council, the 2012 Printemps Érable Commission, the media, the police and anyone who will listen, at least 90 per cent of the violence at demonstrations is either police violence against demonstrators, anger directed at the police or provoked by the police. Keep the police away, and demonstrations would be dramatically peaceful. I know, that flies in the face of what police spokesmen tell us.
This has been my personal experience. Sociologists have been saying the same thing too.
I was at one of those protests a few years ago. The only violence I saw was coming from the police officers that were ramming us, throwing explosives at us and hitting us with their gear.
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Have you missed all the videos of this year and previous of protesters yelling at police faces to incite them?
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This year the police arrested everyone before the protest even started. This is the initial act of violence, and an incitation in and of itself.
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his year the police arrested everyone before the protest even started. This is the initial act of violence, and an incitation in and of itself.
Bullshit. Getting arrested for breaking the law isn't an incitation and your comment is precisely why we need the police to act exactly as they did this year. If this year's protesters and those of years past had a leg to stand on, their best way to get satisfaction would be to document, comply and sue.
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Define “started”.
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This is something I've seen thrown around quite a lot on this sub, I'm gonna compare it to something very out of context but similar at heart.
Before the Syrian conflict started, there were a wave of protests like you probably know and the pro Syrian-regime mob started calling the demonstrators Vandals (among other slurs) and concentrated on the few instances of extremism and shit like "the bad side of the revolution" and disregarded their cause completely. Even though the protesters in Syria had legitimate reasons to go on demonstrations.
Then as you probably also know, the Syrian regime kept shooting at the demonstrators (with the acknowledgement of a lot of Syrians), the peaceful revolution turned bloody and extremism spiked like never before. Now I don't imagine that last part ever happening here in Canada, but yeah.
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I will concede -- that is out of context...
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The only violence I saw was coming from the police officers that were ramming us, throwing explosives at us and hitting us with their gear.
protesters yelling at police
One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is constitutionally-protected free speech, can you guess which?
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I'm going to go with the throwing of explosives...
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You claim to know what was said? There are plenty of forms of speech that aren’t protected by the constitution. Try yelling “fire” in a crowded club or threatening to kill someone sometime, and let me know how that works out.
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The problem is that the entire argument is bullshit.
You can't let hundreds/thousands of people walk down the road without the police being at least there. Its a total crock of shit when the author says "Yeah well, we'd be peaceful if the police wasn't there!". If the organisers aren't accountable, then the city is for letting it go forward and as a taxpayer, I don't want to have to toss some tax money at broken window. We live in a society of laws, people may disagree with them but the avenue to fight them are the courts.
A few years ago, they tried letting this particular protest happen without police being near/seen in 2006 (might be 2005). They called it low impact policing, and it ended with the crowd, predictably, in my opinion, smashing windows on cars and buildings. Then the insurers (or the owners when coverage didn't apply) sued the city for damages.
The live-and-let-live approach to protests, especially the annual COBC protest, has been tried and it failed. Of course, then there's the issue that the people primarily concerned by the protest, the protesters, have a decidedly anti-state bent, which means they don't want or don't see the point of using the means we already have at our disposition to solve our issues with laws. The problem there is that their opinion is one held by a minority and for them to get their way, without consequence, someone else has to not care about their own property rights...
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You can't let hundreds/thousands of people walk down the road without the police being at least there.
It happened several times in 2012.
someone else has to not care about their own property rights...
Why do you care about broken windows but not broken bones?
Why do you care about the protesters respecting the law but not the police?
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Why do you care about broken windows but not broken bones?
Didn't say I didn't. How did you figure I didn't care about broken bones?
Why do you care about the protesters respecting the law but not the police?
I said I did, rather thought it was clear in my post, guess it went over your head... I also pointed out that there was a way to seek redress for wrongs pressed upon the protesters and that those ways are far more effective than this yearly shitfest.
Spare you me your quaint college-level drivel. It's completely hypocritical, "I want to defend my rights, I don't have to care about other people's property! My feelings were hurt!". Defending your rights is essential in a democracy but you can't do that at the expense of the rights of others.
As for the events of 2012, that is a completely different issue. I was there in 2012, I participated, and the times where it did turn bad. It was always because some more extreme participants decided it was time to turn shit up, and those people are a huge part of this yearly protest. I don't want them around unsupervised and I don't want them representing me for the protection of my rights and you shouldn't either.
If you don't see why this protest is counter-productive then I pity your intellectual honesty.
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Police monitored every single student protest in 2012. Try again.
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Of course, because there’s nothing inherently violent about a lawless mob threatening everybody around it�.
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Guess you aren't there when they start. That specific protest is pretty much a mutual war.
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The annual anti-police protest is a joke. It will always descend into violence.
One could argue that the problem is police, and that if police stayed away there would be no violence. One could even point to the annual summetime bonfire riots in Verdun that only ended when police decided not to show up one year.
But I don't think that would work. The annual anti-police protest is not a grouping of a neighbourhood, but of people who are looking for a fight, whether they have been wronged or not.
Can police be abusive? Hell yes! But that doesn't mean the best way to deal with the issue is by marching through the streets.
I have met good cops and I have met bad cops. I've met fucking incompetent cops and I've had police leave me in the middle of the highway.
But marching in the streets looking for a fight is not the way to deal with them.
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Bahahaha, you got people to upvote a Gazette article. Well done.
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I know a lot of people think this protest is just a shit fest where people wreck public property. Maybe they're right.
I don't care about all that. Do people think Canadians should be allowed to protest those in positions of power, without asking for permission from those in positions of power? I'd say absolutely, yes. Since this is in the charter I just assumed most Canadians agreed. I also assumed sections of the charter couldn't just be ignored by a province with impunity. I was wrong.
Did you know that free speech is protected in China's constitution? A constitution or charter is toilet paper if we don't uphold it. Do we really want provinces to be able to ignore sections of the charter when they feel like it? Or should we remove the guarantees of free association from our charter?