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Flickr Photo by Carl W. Heindl
What is supposed to be a forum for deliberation and the development of agreements on global economic governance was an utter failure. In the end, over a billion dollars was spent to build a temporary system of apartheid in Toronto to keep protesters out so that the twenty most wealthy countries in the world could agree to disagree on what to do about the state of the global economy.
Somewhere between a billion and two billion dollars was spent in the end on the G20 in Toronto (and the G8 meeting in Huntsville). It was used to create a fake lake, a fence around the city (a veritable apartheid wall) to keep protesters out, and it was used to enforce a regulation that gave police secret arrest powers that never went through the legislature.
The Toronto Star reported:
"the regulation kicked in Monday and will expire June 28, the day after the summit ends. While the new regulation appeared without notice on the province's e-Laws online database last week, it won't be officially published in The Ontario Gazette until July 3 -- one week after the regulation expires.According to the new regulation, "guards" appointed under the act can arrest anyone who, in specific areas, comes within five metres of the security zone.
Within those areas, police can demand identification from anyone coming within five metres of the fence perimeter and search them. If they refuse, they face arrest. Anyone convicted under the regulation could also face up to two months in jail or a $500 maximum fine.
The security was characterized by Toronto Star's Catherine Porter as "the Miami Model." The reference goes back to seven years ago when the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit took place.
Porter explained that "Manny Diaz, Miami's then-mayor, called the police methods exemplary--a model to be followed by homeland security when confronting protesters" while "human rights groups including Amnesty International called it a model of police brutality and intimidation."
From an interview with Naomi Archer, an indigenous rights worker from North Carolina, Porter outlined how the main identifiers of the "Miami Model" are: information warfare, intimidation, always suggesting the protesters triggered the violence, and congratulating themselves after all is said and done no matter what brutality took place at their hands.
State Repression of Journalists, G20 Protesters
The following is just a handful or small combination of the many videos and first-hand written accounts from those who were there at the G20 in Toronto attempting to exercise the right to assemble peacefully and protest.
-Amy Miller, independent journalist, discusses the threats of rape that were made against women in the detention center. She also details how guards in the center were strip-searching, traumatizing and sexually abusing prisoners by fingering some of the women who had been detained.
