"conditions for detainees at 629 eastern ave are illegal, immoral and dangerous"

From Rabble:
Conditions for detainees at 629 Eastern Avenue are illegal, immoral and dangerous

We just got back to our computers and are frantically writing this message. It is 4:45 a.m. on Monday morning. We are the only people who seem to know the extent of this story. Coffee and adrenaline keeping us going. When we got to Queen and Spadina after leaving the Convergence Centre raid today, we had already been blocked off by police lines. It was pouring rain, and we could hear a confrontation taking place further down the street. The cops didn't care whether or not we were media -- in fact, we heard that media was forced to leave before we arrived. Police acted violently and with sheer disregard for the law, attacking peaceful protesters and civilians unrelated to the protest. Tired, frantic, and feeling defeated, we came home and posted the message before this one.

We then did the only thing left to do, and headed to 629 Eastern Avenue (the G20 Detention Centre, a converted film studio) where detainees from the demonstrations were being taken. We knew people were being released sporadically so we grabbed as many juice boxes and granola bars as we could afford and set off with medical supplies. Journalists were basically absent, showed up only to take a few seconds of video, or simply arrived far too late to be effective.

It is next to impossible to set the scene of what happened at the Detention Centre. Between the two of us we estimate that we spoke to over 120 people, most of whom were released between 9:30 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. Despite not knowing each other, the story they tell is the same....

[Editors' note: Roughly 900 people have now been arrested, according to police, after a weekend of mayhem on the streets of Toronto during the G20 Summit. This is now the largest-ever mass arrest in Canadian history. No word on how many charges have been laid. Compare it to this: 497 people were arrested during the ‘October Crisis and the war measures act' in 1970, which came before Canada had a Charter of Rights and Freedoms.]

Read it here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

not so fast

Not everyone thinks the Conservative government is a lock. Canada's opposition Conservative Party, which is set to bring down the minority Liberal government later this week, was hit by a new opinion poll on Monday that showed it was trailing in the country's most vote-rich region. The Leger Marketing poll for the Sun chain of newspapers put support for the Liberals in the powerful central province of Ontario at 43 percent compared with 31 percent for the Conservatives. Ontario, a Liberal stronghold at the federal level for the past 12 years, accounts for 106 of the 308 seats in House of Commons, and no party can hope to form a government without doing well there. . . . Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals have been badly hurt by a corruption scandal and Conservative leader Stephen Harper says the government must be defeated as soon as possible. The Leger figures, however, suggest there is no guarantee Harper can end 12 years of Liberal rule. Thanks, ALPF! I must say, I...
Read more

dipstick

So there won't be an election yet. Talk about a squeaker . Feel free to tell us how you feel about this, unless it's all been said already, then feel free not to. ALPF mustered his courage and sent more links, so I have some good commentary to post. I found this Macleans story on the Conservative party's reaction to Stronach's decision - and public reaction to that reaction - very interesting. Canadians seem almost universally turned off by the name-calling and sexist slurs. On the other hand, when a certain governor made his "girly men" pronouncement, his constituency howled with glee. (Which is not to say the rest of us weren't appalled.) The Macleans article also notes that not all the sexism came from politicians: Some of the most sexist characterizations of Stronach didn't come from her political adversaries, but from media. Montreal's La Presse newspaper ran a cartoon of Martin leaning out his car window to solicit a street-walking Stronach...
Read more