Accions against MAI in Quebec
Date: Tue, 26 May 1998
At 10:20 am, Montreal's famous riot squad swung into action.
They began by pushing the crowd off Stanley Street, trying to clear access to one of the Sheraton Hotel's main entrances. They then proceeded to arrest activists involved in the blockade.
As of noon, about 30 people had been arrested and a few have been released.
That leaves another 80 to maintain the blockade.Although the protest is a nonviolent one, the police have not been so gentle.
Several of the protestors have been roughed up during their arrests. Apparently the police don't like it when we hold a party to give the rich a rough time.Still, many people have been saying that this is the best demo they've ever been too. The crowd is full of life with constant singing, chanting and dancing. The police have their horses, but we have our puppets.
The bureaucracts will never suffocate our creativity. Dionysus lives!
Help make Montreal an asshole free zone: Operation SalAMI!
http://www.alternatives.ca/salami/
Salami 6pm: a hundred arrests; a conference shut down
Monday, May 25, 1998 6pm
It took all day, but the police finally arrested a hundred activists protesting the MAI and the Conférence de Montréal.
The activists kept arriving in waves and managed to maintain the blockade until 2pm. At that point the attrition due to arrests made the blockaders too thin on the ground and the blockade was lifted.
But the militance didn't end there — the demo moved a few blocks south to the police station where the hundred were being held. There, a UK citizen was arrested for not having moved when he was told. Of course he was given the order in French and was heard protesting, "I didn't understand the order" as he was dragged away.
A hot point in the action came when the riot police advanced on the crowd to clear them from the street, only to find that they had sandwiched twenty camera wielding journalists between their shields and the militants. Not the best way to keep your brutality from being noticed.
All the arrested activists have been charged with unlawful assembly. Some were also charged with impeding the work of the police. Alexandre Popovic was also arrested for breach of conditions after having been ordered not to participate in illegal demonstrations — this, despite the fact he was there only as an observer with Citizens Opposed to Police Brutality..
"In terms of the political fallout, the day was undeniably a success," said Philippe Duhamel, one of the organizers of Operation SalAMI. "The promoters of the globalization of injustice cannot say that their programme of huge profits, the destruction of social programs, and the impoverishment of ordinary people has any longer a consensus in Quebec. Today, Montreal has done its part for the globalization of resistance. We're proud of what we've done."