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Not being fired from a job because your image appeared on news footage at a demonstration and your employer is the government or an asshole corporation. Sure you can try suing them but that sure doesn't pay next months rent.
I say that any police officer at a protest that has covered their badge number should be subject to the same penalty. Also the police should not be allowed to wear armour. I have been to many many demonstrations and the only ones that get out of hand are ones where the police come prepared to riot. When they wear their regular clothes and they have their bike patrol on hand to facilitate traffic in a moving protest there is never, never any violence.
Boy, I am starting to get worried about the NDP on law and order issues. What are they thinking and to whom are they playing. I'll say it now, if they start acting like Liberals, I tell Mulcair to his face he lied to me about what he wanted to do with the NDP and I'll stay home. Screw that.
The National Post has a better position on this than the NDP. That's right... the National Post.
Ottawa’s anti-riot law needs a mask to hide its flaws
i was a little girl when my gma & gpa and parents took me to protests and marches. i don't remember seeing anyone with faces covered not even the neo-nazis bent on disruptio. i think i would've been real intimidated and uncomfortable with masked people around. i have to think 'bout this more.
really? 10 years prison for wearing masks to protests? it is friggen stupidest thing! what if we wear scarfs with hat in the winter?? duh? halloween?
And what about Aboriginal culture wear mask?
If NDP supports it then i give up this party.
Presumably when you were a little girl going to protests and marches there weren't dozens - if not hundreds - of cameras documenting you and your grandparents' presence, and then publishing your pictures on countless social media platforms for anyone and everyone to see. Depending on when and where you're talking about, it's quite possible that the government(s) of the day were not nearly as vindictive and reactionary as the ones that are in place today. If you don't remember ever seeing anyone with their faces covered, my guess is that everyone back then felt pretty confident that they would not be subjected to gas or pepper spray. I can tell you, they're both more than capable of making one feel more intimidated and uncomfortable than any bandana I've ever seen.
Somehow, I don't think this law includes masking one's identity by using a proxy server to commit the crime of massive election fraud.
"Françoise Boivin, the NDP justice critic, said the official Opposition does not have a problem with the "concept" of the bill,"
Jesus, what a nincompoop. Does she indeed speak for the entire federal NDP?
She's the justice critic. She's criticizing justice. Don't fault her for doing her job. Oh, glad to see the federal NDP is maintaining its neutral stance on the student movement here. More or less.
If this is neutrality, I'd hate to see disagreement.
'kay i just read both articles and i don't think the ND MP in the 1st one said anything different than the 2nd article. both noting already having a law in place and what would be a "legitimate" excuse.
i don't think the angst in this thread about the ND's 'opinion' matches what little was said in the article.
I wish Boivin would be unequivocal in her opposition, but can this be called support?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/05/10/pol-cp-masks-bill-penal...
you guys should tell her on her twitter or facebook to opposes it!
Masked Police Provocateurs stopped by union leader at anti SPP protest Gladio provocateurs trying to start a riot foiled by union leader at Montebello, Quebec 2007
When was the last time any of us wore a mask and combat boots to a protest?
i don't think so. i think it is buck shot meant to divide activists in the NDs.
how do ya come out guns a blazin against when it's the Conservatives pretending that exact law doesn't already exist? you'd be coming out against an existing law. think they're doin it to create a wedge issue and deflect from themselves? it's been a bad week let's see if we can make Quebec activists pissed at the ND's kinda deal.
boy do some people here pick up on the corporate press spin and react according to how they want.
I don't always wear masks to protests, but sometimes I cover my face with a scarf or something. It also doubles as protection from the elements when you're out at a rally in Winnipeg in Januart.
In this age of easy access to information, photographers everywhere, and the demonization of social justice activists, I understand anyone who wants to wear a mask, and would not be uncomfortable around them.
The way I see it, if you have any qualms with your picture being taken, splashed on the front page of the newspaper, put on your bosses desk, and attached to every single resume you send out, then wearing a mask might be prudent at rallies.
copy to paste from FB page:
"Conservative MPs on the House justice committee changed the proposed law Thursday, sending the legislation back to the House of Commons with a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail rather than five. The committee was studying Bill C-309, a proposed law that would make it a crime for people rioting or at an unlawful protest to conceal their identities."
protesters VS riot police? is it unfair??
[image size edited by moderator]
And if the stranger next to you wearing a mask and army issue combat boots starts smashing shop windows and throwing stones at the cops, would you point the polizia to your personalized t-shirt that says: 'I'm with stupid'?
As a direct result would the democratically elected phony-majority guys in guvmint then provide us all with beefed-up security and make things even easier for future protests?
If the stranger decides to do things his way, I want to be able to snap his photo with my flip-cam and save it for posterity's sake when we all gather back at the lefties clubhouse for peaceful protesters and say to him: WTF, man?
I think the ten year penalty is absolutely insane, but if it's upheld it should apply just as well to the cops and especially to cops who hide their badge number, whether they're masked or not. Ten years is just totally fucking insane.
We should all take a clue from the movie V For Vendetta, where thousands of demonstrators in the streets are wearing Guy Fawkes masks.
It's what Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights movement would have done. Isn't it?
No, they were masked provocateurs who disrupted peaceful protests with acts of violence even then.
Observe the gladio ops stepped-up in Europe and North America in recent years. We don't need a masked gladio provocateur gunning down ethnics and three cops from his motor scooter as occcured in Toulouse. And then some Muslim kid is executed after an alleged stand-off with group of trained killers on the French government's payroll. We don't need that baloney.
We don't need to resemble a masked right wing extremist who shot a number of people to death in Norway.
Masks are for right wing extremists and provocateurs in the hire of right wing governments not us on the left.
So you think ten years imprisonment for wearing a mask is okay, Fidel?
If it makes things more difficult for gladio terror, then yes.
I've never worn a mask except when a child on Halloween. Masks are for kids, clowns, deer and small game hunters, gladio provocateurs, and internet concern trolls.
I propose protesting naked in the streets!
I'd like to think it will never happen, BB. I'd like to think it's a law which will never be enforced to the full extent of. And I'd also like to think that provocateurs will stop infiltrating left wing groups and perpetrating violence against innocent bystanders.
They know who we all are. We don't need to wear masks, but they do. Right-rightists are the cowards and do their nasty stuff in the shadows. It's not our style. If a big cop wants to stare me down in the street, he'd better have some backup. No more than three of them against me should even things up.
I don't even think it's constitutional. It effectively says "guilty before proven innocent".
They can't criminalize masks. We have freedom of expression, including what to wear.
They can't criminalize protests. We have freedom of expression and assembly. (At least we're supposed to.)
They can't even criminalize *masks at protests*. Doing something lawful while wearing something fine? Where's the harm?
So they've resorted to the trifecta: UNLAWFUL + protest, + mask. Basically, if you're in the wrong situation wearing the wrong thing, you're presumed to be guilty.
What if the police start launching tear gas? Am I committing a crime by covering my face?
What if someone is wearing a burka during a protest about Steven Harper's foreign policy, and suddenly the police pronounce the protest "dangerous" because they escalate with a few idiots? Has she suddenly transformed into a criminal if she second guesses whether she has the right to stay? Has she suddenly transformed into a criminal if she doesn't flee the protest fast enough after the police unilaterally declare it unlawful?
There WILL be innocent people caught by this law who aren't doing anything harmful, even indirectly.
If someone is convicted of this crime and has done no other criminal wrongdoing... I can't see how the hell it would square with the charter of rights.
This what democracy looks like in 2012. These people are dressed to kill.
http://www.vice.com/read/some-pics-from-the-toronto-g20
Don't you dare put on a bandana when he fires tear gas at you, it could get you ten years.
http://www.vice.com/read/some-pics-from-the-toronto-g20
Well that's just fantastic. And if they should choose to take on someone who doesn't share your level of privilege and machismo? (As they so often do.) What then? Are you going to be there to intervene? Didn't think so.
It's worth acknowledging that before the union leader "stopped" these agents provocateurs, they had already been isolated and exposed as cops by other protesters - protesters who happened to be wearing masks. Brother Coles' great achievement was being perhaps the last person on site to clue in to that fact.