Police Repression in Windsor (Canada)

JC Helary helary at eskimo.com
Sun Jun 11 18:58:56 PDT 2000


----- Forwarded message from Karen Kawawada <kkawawada at mx6.tiki.ne.jp> -----

Police Repression in Windsor by Judy Rebick It was like living in a police state. Windsor, June 4, 2000 may not go down in history as the day democracy died in Canada but it felt like it to me.

The demonstration against the Organization of American States was no different than hundreds of others. A few thousand people gathered in front of City Hall chatting with each other instead of listening to the speakers. Then a very short march down to the waterfront with the "Women of Windsor" in the front blowing whistles with the young "direct action" folk in the middle protecting them from being picked off by the police.

Already the police had started harassing the young people. One fellow was arrested for wearing a bracelet with studs, punk accessory du jour, but to the over-hyped police it looked like a weapon. Others reported to me being followed, stopped and searched for no reason other than their youth.

Then we arrived at the waterfront and were greeted with a massive police presence behind a 10-foot-high fence guarding the compound where the OAS was meeting. About 10 minutes into the speeches a group of the young people started snaking towards the fence arms linked. The group hoisted a banner up on the fence. That's all they did. No one climbed the fence. No one tried to push down the fence. And at that moment no one had even thrown anything at the cops.

All they did was put up a banner and for that they were pepper sprayed. What was the crime? Decorating in the first degree? It was after the pepper spray that people started throwing things and let me tell you I felt like throwing something myself. It was later in the day that I really felt the threat to democracy.

After the main rally had broken up, a group of about 100 people found an entrance to the OAS compound and managed to sit down in front of a bus that had about three people who wanted to get in. Around 20 people, mostly young women, sat with arms linked in front of the bus and the rest surrounded it, hoping to delay any police coming from the street. They didn't come from the street; they came from inside the compound. About 100 Darth Vader-like riot cops pounding on their shields marched up to the group sitting in. The rest of the crowd tried to move in but were prevented by a phalanx of riot police.

These enormous cops could have picked up those young women with one finger and moved them out of the way. Instead they sprayed them. Not a few feet from them as Dr. Pepper did in Vancouver during the APEC, but directly into their faces, less than an inch from their eyes.

Pepper spray is nasty stuff. I got some in my throat and was coughing for hours. There was no need for the pepper spray. The demonstrators were employing the age-old practice of non-violent resistance. The police knew there was no danger. There had been no violence from the demonstrators all day. The only violence came from the police.

Later when the angry crowd yelled at police through the fence, they were again pepper sprayed just for yelling. The purpose of the police presence in Windsor that day was intimidation, pure and simple. A fence and the Windsor police could have protected the OAS from any shutdown. Instead there were hundreds of Ontario Provincial Police and RCMP from all over Ontario and Quebec brought in.

Inside, Prime Minister Chretien was talking about how important it was to include those skeptical of free trade in the process, while outside the forces of repression were pepper spraying anyone who wasn't willing to protest in exactly the way the police decided was appropriate. What's next? Perhaps we will only be permitted to give an opinion that is officially sanctioned as well.

Police excess in Windsor was much worse than it was at APEC but it was a story for just one day. In Canada we have charter rights to free assembly. These rights were violated in Windsor to protect bureaucrats from countries where no such rights exist. We are told that free trade will bring democracy to autocratic countries. So far it seems to be bringing autocracy to us.

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Judy Rebick is host of Straight from the Hip and author of Imagine Democracy (Stoddart).

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