I am working on a photo story of the girl sitting with peace symbols up and her friend in the tiedye. Both were arrested for just what you see them doing here. I got their number at the detention facility but was unable to contact them today.
After being brutally dispersed from Queen’s Park, the allotted space for peaceful protesters, a small group of about 250 protesters chanted “peaceful protest” as they marched their way down Yonge to the Fence erected to protest the G20 conference, at Bay and Front. Riot police moved in forcing the protesters up to Wellington and Bay and barricading them into a small space. After 15 minutes, with no resistance from the group, police fired rubber bullets and physically forcing them into an enclosed space giving no option to escape. They finally opened the barrier allowing the group to move east to Yonge. The group eventually moved their protest to Novotel Hotel. Riot police again enclosed the group as they sat peacefully with locked arms (contrary to media reports of it being a riot) and arrested all approximately 200 of them.
Police began releasing hundreds of G20 protesters one by one, without charges, from the makeshift detention facility at the Toronto Film Studios. Many of those released were those arrested at the peaceful protest at the Novotel at about 10:30 the night before. Those released stated that the conditions were filthy, cold and unhygienic. They were crammed into small cages, denied washroom access and ignored. They stated that in 18 hours they were given just 3 cups of water and a cheese bun and many were denied their right to call a lawyer. There will be a facebook group started for those that were detained to tell their stories.
Protesters practicing their freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association were denied most of their legal rights.
This was the group that was arrested at the Novotel Hotel. These photos were taken from the same spot just a minute apart. The police were storming in, and this group is what they were storming at, less than 100 ft away. There was another troop of police coming behind them and another to their left. They quite literally had no way out. After about 20 minutes the police behind them opened their barricade and let the group out. This was about 40 minutes before the police at the Novotel again surrounded them. This time police plucked them out one by one until they had arrested the entire group. Many of them spent over 24 hours in freezing, crowded cages with minimal water and food dealing with abuse and discrimination by the guards. Now who was really terrorizing the City of Toronto during the G20?
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