In this entry, the comment will show both sides of the notorious Britannia Nine incident which shows the BC Liberals as a bunch of thugs using police to incite a riot consistently.
The only people willing to keep the peace were brutalized by the cops.
Welcome to the New World Order in BC brought to you by Premier Gordon Campbell.
It's amazing what greed does to people in power.
Essentially the SLAPP legislation and the Britannia incident criminalizes public protest.
And this violates the Canadian Rights and Freedoms act.
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Here's the activist's point of view. The date of the incident was October 3, 2002.
On October 3rd, 2002, Gordon Campbell was scheduled to speak at the opening of the Canucks Family Literacy Centre at Britannia Community Centre. Parents from the Commercial Drive area and people involved in Britannia organized a protest against Campbell and his cuts to education and social programs.
The demo had been called on very short notice and people were hanging out casually. A man was playing a saxophone. A tall, thin older man wearing a clown nose and a loose brown suit was doing a mime routine about being excluded from the ceremony in front of the small cluster of bored police at the door.
He was seized by the police officers, swung around, handcuffed and arrested.
The police dragged him around the corner and the crowd followed the police around the side of the building in the alley off of Commercial Drive. The police slammed the arrested man's face into the stucco wall of the building while people chanted "LET HIM GO! LET HIM GO!"
More arrests were made when the man, Minister George Feenstra, was taken to the police wagon. The crowd grew with pedestrians witnessing the scene from Commercial Drive and streaming in to support people against the police brutality they saw.
The crowd sat down in the alley and blocked the wagon from passing through. High school got out of class and students joined the protest.
The police moved in to displace the crowd seated in the alley. They attacked, threatened and threw people to the ground. One 13-year old Britannia student was assaulted, picked up, carried away and arrested by the police.
The standoff between the crowd and the police continued as the police pepper sprayed, beat and arrested more of the crowd. The crowd came together and stood off against the line of police and drove them off; booing and chanting, "Out, out, out! Out of our community!" The cops retreated through the alley to the cruisers parked on Commercial Drive. The crowd marched down the street without a cop in sight.
While the demonstration reached the Community Policing Centre in Grandview Park, the police parked the wagons in the Canadian Tire parking lot and harassed the people arrested and cuffed inside. Scott Rohan and Murray Bush were in the back of a wagon together. The door to their cell opened and a circle of 25 cops stood around the open door in the abandoned parking lot. A massive enraged cop stepped forward into the middle of the semi-circle, pointed at Scott, called him out and threatened him. Scott looked at him and the horseshoe of cops behind him and shook his head.
The six adults initially arrested were held in jail until the next evening. Two youths, including the high school kid who was punched by the cop, were arrested and charged. They were harassed, threatened and subjected to psychological examination by the police and the jail. They were released in the afternoon the day after the arrests. All the people arrested left jail with ridiculous release conditions, most notably: not to be within 2 blocks of Gordon Campbell, and not to associate with any others arrested.
Three days later the cops isolated and arrested Ivan Drury, a political organizer involved in the Britannia Police Riot. As he rode his bicycle down Main Street, the cops cut him off with a cruiser and arrested him on a warrant. When they were handcuffing him on the sidewalk in front of the police station, a truck full of un-uniformed police stopped in front of him, leaned out their windows and chanted, "You will lose, Drury! You will lose!" and sped away. Ivan was held in jail overnight.
WHY WERE THE BRITANNIA 9 ARRESTED?
The Britannia protest started long before the third of October. Increased poverty, uncertain employment and work conditions, inaccessible health care, vanishing child care and the repression of dissent through unrestrained police brutality and harassment is the backbone of the BC Liberal government agenda. The Liberals use legislation to attack the lives and security of poor and working people in favour of freedom of profit for corporations and then use the army and police to crush the resulting resistance.
The Liberals' legislative attacks on poor and working people have brought the reality of state oppression into the lives of many people who previously felt like they were safe and secure. The Britannia police riot has brought the awareness of the police as a tool of the government to control and forbid people's resistance to these attacks.
Within this case is the fundamental question of the right to protest. The charge against many of the Britannia 9 of "attending an illegal assembly", a charge rarely used in Canadian law, asks the question, when did this assembly become illegal? How loud are we allowed to raise our voices? How effectively are we allowed to organize? The answer will be determined by this trial and by the movement of people in BC against the Liberal government.
While the Britannia 9 were still in jail Gordon Campbell denounced them as 'thugs'. The real thugs are the ones who use violence, intimidation, harassment and the threat of prosecution to protect their profit driven agenda. The case of the Britannia 9 is between the thugs in government and poor and working people throughout this province who are defending ourselves against their agenda.
We must support the Britannia 9 and demand that the charges be dropped in defense of all working and poor people in BC who are impacted by the BC Liberal agenda. In the struggle against cuts, the limiting and elimination of labour rights and privatization and the rest of the Liberal agenda, we must defend the people who are arrested for their involvement in this movement.
For the legal record, we have the trial of Bush, Drury, Feenstra and Goodman.
However, Jessica Mott and Scott Rohan were released prior to the trial.
R. vs Bush, Drury, Feenstra and Goodman
Basically Drury, a political activist, was guilty of assaulting a VPD officer.
In short, he was scapegoated.
Here's an insight into why George Feenstra was there at Britannia Community Centre, Oct. 3, 2002:
Who is my neighbour?
His approach is the proper approach towards the homeless, the drug addicts, and the prostitutes.
George Feenstra went onto join the Nashwaaksis United Church in FREDERICTON, NB.
Basically, he got moved.
http://www.nashwaaksisunited.ca/minstaf.htm
According to this headline, Feenstra was forced out due to a rehab-only attitude of residents.
These are the same people whose actions may cause addicts and prostitutes to make wrong decisions.
Their solutions show no compassion or mercy for the homeless, the drug users and the prostitutes.
Even so, the decisions by the underprivileged also more directly result in their misery.
Here's Scott Rohan's take on the Oct. 3, 2002 incident and the trial which essentially criminalizes public protest.
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