G20 in Toronto : A police state in defense of capitalism. Appeal to solidarity with those arrested

Demonstration against police repression and in solidarity with the G20 resistance
THURSDAY, JULY 1st, NOON in MONTREAL
*** new starting point: Square St-Louis ***
(St-Denis & Rue du Square St-Louis, métro Sherbrooke)

PROTEST THE CRIMINALIZATION OF DISSENT IN TORONTO!
ORGANIZE A SOLIDARITY PROTEST IN YOUR CITY!

Ottawa (J30), Hamilton (J30), London (J30), Windsor (J30), Winnipeg (Ll1), Québec City (JL1), Lyon (France, JL1) and others cities will also hold solidarity demonstrations

In the face of police violence, violent attacks against protesters and arrests without president at the anti-G20 mobilization, CLAC 2010 - the Anti-Capitalist Convergence - appeals to social movements to mobilize in solidarity with victims of state repression on the streets of Toronto.

Over 900 were arrested in Toronto during the G20 mobilization, via police kidnapping, political profiling, house raids and street level police snatch squads. Police violence, brutliaty and intimidation were the order of the day via the Toronto police in their systematic repression against anti G20 street protests.

To date this is the largest mass arrest at a political protest in Canadian history targeting activists in Toronto who are expressing their opposition towards the capitalist system that enforces a sexist, colonial and unjust political system globally via unaccountable global institutions like the G20.

MONTREAL DEMONSTRATION - THURSDAY JULY 1ST

CLAC 2010 denounces the magnitude of the police repression in Toronto during the G20 summit. Police violence in Toronto is an immediate articulation of the social violence perpetuated by the G20 economic agenda of economic austerity, that will deliver economic cutbacks to social services that will hit the most vulnerable in societies around the world. It is the people who will be forced to pay the bill for the last financial crisis, while the major banks and the financial sector responsible for the crisis, move in to benefit from the massive economic stimulus packages built via public finances.

In Toronto a police state and the policies of economic violence enforced by the G20 go hand in hand.

900 arbitrary and politically motivated arrests in Toronto, a number never seen before in Canada, amount to almost three times more than those during the October crisis in 1970. Police forces in Toronto violated fundamental rights, detaining people for hours without charge, without access to legal council and without access to food or water for extended periods of time. Toronto police are also guilty of breaking and entering without a warrant, political profiling, intimidation, assault, kidnapping and utilizing extreme measures of forces against protesters as well as journalists.

Across the world people are living in extreme poverty and suffering due to the political and economic consequences put into place by unaccountable financial elites gathered together within structures like the G20, we view the G20 as illegitimate and will fight for the G20's abolition.

Stephen Harper's hosting of the G20 assured that the main focus for the summit was to assure financial markets and big capital, nothing consequential on the environment, womens health, or the social consequences of the economic crisis. All of this to consider once again that capitalism, is an economic system that privileges the smallest minority at the expense of the larger majority, a system that we are committed to fighting.

This past weekend inside the detention center jail in downtown Toronto, women arrestees between the ages of 17-25 experienced instances of sexual harassment and sexual profiling. One independent journalist arrested arbitrarily has spoken out to the public after witnessing a woman traumatized from intimidation and sexual violence imposed by police officers inside the detention center. Other women detainees experienced threats of 'gang banging' and rape. Also many LGBTQ people were segregated from the rest of the arrestees, put in a separate cell because they were queer.

We were witnesses to the lock down of dissent and criminalization of social movements in Toronto. Police tactics in this forum are a well known tactic to divide the people, break the resistance and impose regressive politics. In Toronto the police delivered before unseen levels of repression and we will fight back.

CLAC 2010 will be hosting a demonstration on Thursday July 1st 2010, 12pm at Carré St-Louis, outside metro Sherbrooke in Montreal and we are appealing to all social and progressive movement, including families and children to participate in a demonstration that will end with a baby block.

CLAC – the anti-capitalist convergence - is a network of groups and individuals who unite together to consolidate their respective struggles at a local level and mobilize their communities in the face of the G8 and G20.

Please share the facebook event :
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=129158520458163

VIDEOS OF THE G20, THE RESISTANCE AND THE REPRESSION

Independent Journalist Amy Miller on Violence and Threats Against Women in Detention Centre
http://vimeo.com/12925239

Témoignage d'un québécois fouillé et questionné arbitrairement
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1384764056790&ref=mf

Arbitrary abduction by undercovers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNHQsjWWTs8

Three protestors violently abducted by undercovers
http://vimeo.com/12947748

Small resumé of the "Get off the fence" demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsnGpIRQzkU&feature=player_embedded

Journalist attacked in the streets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7OA920pbv8&feature=player_embedded

Police charge in the "free speech area" designated by the autorities
Queen's park, Saturday in the late afternoon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVDY8pE_twY
http://vimeo.com/12883752

Spontaneous demonstration is being repress on the corner of Spadina and Queen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heb9BXjYcII&feature=player_embedded

The police blocks the access of the convergence center (HQ of protestors)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSKmp7E3hjE

Solidarity rally is being repressed by the police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiLt40d_AbU&feature=player_embedded
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1512684781074#comments

TESTIMONIES AND STORIES

Police conduct raids during the night
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/06/26/police-booth-raid426.h...

Intimidation and illegal detention of organizers by undercover cops
http://www.mediacoop.ca/story/community-organizers-thrown-unmarked-polic...