More than 100 police officers surrounded the Graduate Student Union building.
“And then they started filing in and bringing people out at gunpoint from their sleep and prevented us from participating in democracy that day,” said Daniel Vandervoort, Vice President External, University of Toronto (U of T) Graduate Students Union (GSU) at a rally held Wednesday outside the GSU.
According to Vandervoort, the G20 Summit’s Integrated Security Unit (ISU) raided the GSU at 8 am on the morning of June 27 without a warrant, after a Reilly Security guard alerted campus police that people in “black clothing” had come off the bus from Quebec (who were staying as invited guests in the GSU gym) to participate in the G20 Summit protests.
“Because obviously it’s a crime to wear black,” said Vandervoort.
After police spoke to Vandervoort, he said they decided to arrest everyone and started moving people out of the building. “One older gentleman who has diabetes was having a hard time walking up the steps,” he said. “And so the police started beating his legs with batons to get him to go up the stairs faster.”
Vandervoort claimed he was choked and his legs were stomped on by police. Others, he alleged, were subjected to much more brutal treatment by police.
“The whole thing was obviously f—king bogus because they dropped our charges (in October) because there is no evidence,” he said. “It was a waste of time, energy and resources. And those are two and a half days that over 70 of us will never get back. So f—k the police.”
The U of T community is concerned that campus activists and community allies could be subjected to further “harassment” if the university continues a relationship between private security companies and campus police.
On Wednesday, rally organizers announced that the “G20 Debriefing” meeting between Toronto Police and private security firms at the U of T Faculty Club hosted by U of T Campus Police and Reilly Security had been cancelled.
“But we’re going to walk over to the Faculty Club to make sure that they are not there,” said Zexi Wang of the U of T Students’ Union. “To make sure that we don’t have these people on our campus.”
Several dozen protesters marched to the Faculty Club chanting, “Cops off campus, drop all charges.”
An organizer rang the doorbell and got no response. When they did open the door, Wang delivered a letter and wanted a confirmation that the meeting was cancelled.
“We just wanted to confirm that the Toronto Association of Police and Private Security (TAPPS) is not meeting in this building,” said Wang.
“They’re not meeting,” said a spokesperson.
In June when thousands took to the streets to protest at the G8/G20 Summit, Shaminen Mavalvala said, “The police, the state and the U of T Administration were working hard to silence us, to criminalize us and to repress us.”
At the same time, with little opposition, Harper convinced other leaders to set a goal of cutting their deficits in half by 2013 and eliminating them by 2016.
“I’m already seeing the consequences in cuts to social programs and workers’ wages,” she said. “Whether it’s the Special Diet cut here in Ontario or the pension reforms in France, those who are being most affected must fight back.”
In France, mass strikes and street protests have already shut down parts of the country.
“The mobilizations in France show that people are not willing to take these cuts sitting down,” said Mavalvala, a board of director at the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG). “People will resist and resist with force.”
That’s the message protesters were attempting to send to TAPPS and the U of T on Wednesday.
“We are resisting every day all the time and will continue to do so,” she said. But it’s not an easy struggle, especially when global leaders have billions of dollars at their disposal for security forces designed to defeat resistance movements.
“But this repression isn’t working,” said Yogi Acharya of the Community Solidarity Network. “You imprison 10, 20 or 30 of us, but 100 more join our movement.”
Protesters then marched to Simcoe Hall where journalist and activist Judy Rebick recalled the first time police were called on to the U of T campus. It was 1972 and a tent city had been set up outside Hart House for transient youth. By the time it was over, 21 people had been arrested for occupying the campus at U of T.
“They (the police) came on to the campus and they brutalized people,” said Rebick. “At that time, there was a public uproar the likes of which you wouldn’t have believed. There was a Cops off Campus campaign to say never again should cops be called on to this campus. Just like what you’re doing (now).”
During the G20 Summit in June, over 1,100 were arrested. The largest mass arrest in Canadian history.
“And where is the outrage from the community?” asked Rebick.
“Your president should be making a statement denouncing the denial of civil liberties. That’s what the president of an institute of learning is meant to do. Not to hide behind locked doors with cops and security people and plot against his own students.”
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