“This ain’t Canada”: the trauma of the G-20

A young woman who was arrested at the G-20 protests talks about her dehumanizing experience at the hands of the cops. She was far from alone in being grotesquely maltreated. Stories like hers are pouring out, and it’s getting awfully hard to deny the ugly picture they add up to. Even rah-rah cop-huggers like the Toronto Sun‘s Joe Warmington are now waking up to the brutal side of those whose job it is to be enforcing the law, not making it up as they go along, or taking it in their own hands. What the fuck, for example, to make of this?

An incident during the protests on University Ave. — captured on video — would be a good one to study.
In it an officer says “this ain’t Canada right now” while another one says “this is G20 land.” And when a man, who was put in a physical hold by police for no reason clear on the video, said “I don’t like to have my civil rights violated” an officer can be heard saying “there’s no civil rights here in this area.”
Where did these officers get this idea? On their own or from above?

Pertinent questions, and let’s hope there are answers. For that, we will need a full public inquiry. Have you joined this Facebook group yet?

In the meantime, DAMMIT JANET! has some very pertinent information for those who were told this wasn’t Canada and that their legal rights were thus null and void. Perhaps someone out there can use it–at the very least, to embarrass those who fucked up big-time by uttering those very revealing words. Because the last time *I* looked, Toronto’s geography didn’t magically change overnight just so the G(oddamn)-20 could grace our home and native land with its presence.

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2 Responses to “This ain’t Canada”: the trauma of the G-20

Skinny Dipper says:

July 9, 2010 at 7:34 AM

Thanks for the info.
I am now starting to hear conservative radio talk show hosts and read conservative columns stating that the public has had enough talk of the G20 weekend. They are trying to bury the issue. When they are trying to bury it, that must mean it is really important to Canadians.
Just because many Canadians think that the police did a fine and dandy job against the evil protesters, that doesn’t make things right. Today, I read in the Toronto Sun that the police dropped of the arrested in suburban areas of Toronto with no proper clothing or money.
Personally, I do hope that those who were illegally arrested or harassed will not settle out of court, but fight all the way and seek the maximum possible compensation for personal damages. Our governments and police need to be held accountable for their actions.
Sabina Becker says:

July 9, 2010 at 10:33 AM

There’s no question that the conservative “journalists” have an agenda here, and yes, it is to bury what’s really going on. But how do you bury a thousand people arrested on no charges? You can’t. And these conservatards are really idiots, too, because thanks to the magic of the Internets, it doesn’t matter what they tell the public–those thousand unlawfully arrested people are going to come out and tell their stories. And little by little, that’s what’s going to demolish this wall of silence that the con-tards are trying to build. Before World War II, a lot of their conservative forefathers didn’t believe Hitler was really so bad, and that he was even doing humanity a service by squelching those pesky Jews. But after the war, when all the photos and stories from the concentration camps began to emerge, well…let’s just say that these guys found their vaunted “silent majority” viewpoint suddenly VERY unpopular!

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“This ain’t Canada”: the trauma of the G-20

2 Responses to “This ain’t Canada”: the trauma of the G-20

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