Press Release:
RESIST REPRESSION:
OUR RESOLVE IS STRONGER THAN THEIR PRISON WALLS
What: Community rally and march to oppose austerity measures in our city, to fight police repression against activists during the G20, at Occupy Toronto, and in marginalized communities and in solidarity with political prisoners.
Date: Tuesday, November 22
Time: 4 p.m.
Location: Meet at St. James Park
MORE INFO:
From June 21 to June 27, 2010, tens of thousands of people mobilized on the streets of Toronto to resist the G20 meetings knowing that they were initiating the “age of austerity.” We mobilized for Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination, for migrant justice and an end to war and occupation; for climate justice; against income inequality and for community control over resources. We fought to end capitalism and colonization.
In Toronto and across the globe we’ve seen austerity measures snatching away health, educational and social services, while the governments of G20 countries continue to bail out banks and corporations. The austerity agenda threatens the lives and livelihoods of many around the world and we see these impacts in our communities as libraries and shelters are cut, as water is polluted and as land is pillaged for resources, as jobs are threatened and poverty and hunger increase. Today Harper, McGuinty and Ford are attempting to take away basic services from people in the name of austerity while pouring millions into the military, policing and immigration enforcement. Today, we commit again to stopping them.
In June 2010, we were met with the most repressive and expensive police operation ever seen for a G20 summit; over 1,100 were arrested and many more were harassed, intimidated and brutalized merely for speaking out against the injustice of the global austerity agenda. Since then, dozens of organizers have lived under onerous bail conditions, some facing long jail sentences.
These practices are not an exception. Today Toronto Police is trying to evict Occupy Toronto. Daily, we witness racist criminalization of migrants and refugees becoming more vicious, while the colonization and destruction of Indigenous nations and their lands continues. Daily, our communities experience the entrenchment of a racist, ableist, patriarchal, queer-phobic, trans-phobic, profit-driven culture, while countless bodies bear the violence of an oppressive police state that enforces these norms.
In spite of brutality and repression, our communities continue to build and grow our movements for social, economic, and environmental justice and autonomy.
We have grown tired of the rule of the 1 per cent at the expense of all of us — we want to see a better, freer and more just world.
On November 22 at 4 p.m. we will take to the streets again! To challenge the repression we faced during and after the G20 and to show our solidarity for people who are criminalized for daring to dream of a better world. We demand that all charges against those still awaiting their G20 trials are dropped!
Join us on November 22nd starting at St. James Park, Occupy Toronto, as we tell the capitalist elite that if you won’t let us dream, we won’t let you sleep! Our resolve is stronger than their prison walls, and we will continue to fight against any and all repression!
#30#
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