Demonstrations against police brutality:
TORONTO:
Tuesday March 15, 2011
5 p.m. start
51 Division (Front and Parliament St.)
*
MONTREAL:
Tuesday March 15, 2011
5 p.m. start
Maisonneuve et Jeanne-Mance (Metro Place des Arts)
*
OTTAWA:
Tuesday March 15, 2011
6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Human Rights Monument – Elgin and Lisgar
*
HALIFAX:
Tuesday March 15, 2011
7 p.m. start
Meet at the South Commons, located on the Halifax Commons.
*
WINNIPEG:
Saturday, March 19, 2011
12 p.m. noon start
Starting at the park at the corner of Selkirk and Powers.
Food, music and an art project at the MERC following the march.
**
Toronto Statement:
One week last summer the police turned the whole city into a prison. But in poor neighbourhoods, it’s the G20 everyday. Communities are under attack by the police because they are poor, homeless, racialized, First Nations and immigrants.
We are further abused when we fight back. Our communities are under attack because the police exist to maintain a social order in this country that protects the government, the banks, and the rich while criminalizing the rest.
Despite the trillions of dollars stolen, embezzled and extorted by banks and finance companies that led to this recession, the police are not in the habit of kicking down doors on Bay St. But they are kicking down doors, ticketing, arresting, beating and killing people in poor communities.
March 15 is the International Day Against Police Brutality. A day to bring awareness to the violence, torture, intimidation and harassment by our governments’ police forces. We, the people, the victims and the survivors will come together to raise our voices to show that we will not stay silent!
The Toronto Star recently revealed that of the 3,400 investigations the Special Investigations Unit has conducted into the Toronto police in its 20-year history, only 95 have resulted in charges, only 16 of those in convictions, and only 3 of those officers actually went to jail.
Yet we know the police are guilty. Homeless people and people with mental health issues are routinely harassed, beaten and sometimes killed by police in this city. Non-status women seeking a safe haven from abuse are dragged out of shelters by immigration enforcement officers on tips from two regular sources: the police, and the very abusers these women are attempting to escape. Racialized communities are targeted daily by police.
As part of this internationally observed day, a rally has been organized for Tuesday March 15. We will be meeting outside of 51 Division at Front & Parliament. OCAP and other community organizations invite everyone to come out and show support for victims of police violence.
No more police brutality! No more impunity!
Statement (English):
In a world full of prisons, cameras, and police, we are all assumed to be criminals and are treated in kind. State agencies surveil and repress in every corner, prepared to harass, intimidate, and imprison any perceived threat. Borders and immigration detention centres prevent the free movement of people, while secret CSIS lists and security certificates subject people to any degree of state interventions.
Increasingly harsh sentencing and arbitrary parole revocations follow the construction and expansion of prisons in every province, including five federal and seven provincial expansions in Quebec. Police patrols and routine surveillance in the streets of every city and town reveal repression, state control, and ‘corrections’ everywhere, despite falling police-reported crime rates and a decrease in severity of these crimes across the country.
Description:
No matter how we struggle, whether it’s to pay rent or live without it, the police will always stand between our current misery and its end. Along with the courts, laws, and prisons, they maintain the scarcity imposed upon us each day, and the notion that we can’t survive without them.
We’re not participating in this demonstration simply to protest police brutality or police murders, or to demand fair trials and tribunals for ‘errant’ cops, but because we would do away with their broader role and daily functions as the brute force and physical threat behind state and capital.
The police and their prisons do not make our lives any safer. We can break the police.
Suggestions for participation:
Come with a group of friends.
Wear black, and a mask; conceal your identity.
Be alert and prepared for undercover infiltration and police intervention.
— some anarchists
#30#
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