Jaggi Singh on The Police State

Jaggi Singh has been targeted by the RCMP since 1997 when he was detained by police at APEC Vancouver. At APEC Quebec City, he was detained in 2005.

His crime? Exercising free speech without violence. Let's listen to Jaggi explain his situation, and how the State may work in limiting free speech.

"It looks like I'll be here for the next few months. I'm surprised by the situation in general. But the judgment, no. You can get a sense of a judge and the Crown and how serious they want to be about things. I was getting ready to expect this.

"We had two solid witnesses. The catapult (the weapon Singh is charged with possessing) was taken out of my hands. Judy Rebick testified to that. After I saw you on Rene Levesque Blvd. (in Quebec City last Friday), it seems everything that happened there is being put on my shoulders, but I'm not being charged with any of it. They're saying I gave orders. Well, if I gave orders, then charge me with incitement (to riot). They're not. They're saying Molotovs and rocks were thrown. If there were, I didn't throw them. And I didn't give anybody orders to throw any of them.

"So the charges against me are very clear, and on the merit of each of them, it's arguable whether I would be found guilty. I'm sure I'll be found innocent. There's no reason I should be kept in custody now.

"It's a ratcheting up, a step up of the levels of intimidation. There are different levels to this. One is using 5,000 canisters of tear gas, building a fence and mounting a huge security operation. Another level is legal intimidation, to use legal means to try to silence voices.

"Each time, whenever a handful of major world leaders are due to arrive in a Canadian city, I get abducted. They justify refusing bail by saying it would undermine confidence in the Canadian justice system. I feel the reverse: my continued detention undermines confidence because I was exercising free-expression rights. I mean, people saw me. Judy saw me. You saw me. Other people saw me. They saw my role. I wasn't some street general. I was trying to be a helpful presence, and then I left after talking to you. How can you deny liberty on these grounds?

"The people I know are upset, and this will inspire them to be more active. Obviously, instead of trying to get someone out of jail, we'd rather spend our time raising awareness and organizing more actions. We've actually managed to build up a pretty impressive movement against capitalist globalization. The next 10 years might be interesting. Various social forces might have a certain amount of power.

"There are different ways of policing this. One is this counter-insurgency model, which has three stages. The third stage is all-out civil war. The second stage is when movements become a potential threat. The first stage is when it's not a threat, when everything is open, like it is now. At that stage you get as much information as possible on everybody. You target who the leaders are because you target them in Stage 2. And you eliminate them in Stage 3.

"It's the model that's been applied in Latin America, almost word-for-word. In Quebec, an example of Stage 2 is when the October Crisis happened. Where did all these names come from? The names of the 3,000 or so people they arrested?

"The police forces were keeping track. And if you have to eliminate these 3,000 people or put them in jail, you can potentially nip in the bud any progressive politics for that time of so-called crisis.

"Other things in that model is to make lessons of people. To say that if you fight back you will have to suffer punishment. The idea being that people won't fight back, they'll simply abide by the status quo. And if they do you get to Stage 2.

"Another model that is perhaps more applicable here is this whole idea of four categories of people: the radicals, idealists, realists and opportunists. Everybody is an idealist. Everybody has this idea that things should be better and that's really a non-ideological thing. The fear is that those idealists will become radicals and start questioning the roots of the system, start questioning the power structure. People in power don't like that. You have to turn these idealists into realists, because once they're realists, they can accept the compromises that opportunists make; those being the politicians.

"And how do you turn an idealist into a realist instead of a radical? Well, a baton blow to the head is one way. Getting wafts of tear gas is another. Yet another is making the radicals seem crazy and criminal. Give the distinct impression through the media that you will be jailed. You will be treated differently and it's not worth the trouble. As long as idealists stay that way, or even better become realists or opportunists, that's great.

"It's really important to remain engaged. To avoid that dynamic of marginalization and sectarianism. To present a human face, through the community and the media. (The repression) is going to backfire because it's not like this is happening out of the blue. People understand this movement. And on a personal level they know who I am. They can't marginalize me in this way because of that track record. And it's laughable the day when a teddy-bear-launching catapult becomes a threat to national security. Apparently, it has."