Just this week, tens of thousands were out protesting the G20 summit in Seoul. They weren't satisfied marching in approved zones, they tried to get into the restricted city centre, past police. Only seven people have been reported arrested so far and no one is being accused of being a criminal mastermind.
[Wednesday] in London, 50,000 young people protested against education cuts. They crossed police lines and occupied the headquarters of the Tory Party. Some people rioted. There have been 50 arrests.
So once again: why, in Toronto, is calling for civil disobedience suddenly criminal conspiracy, with the power to ruin young lives?
Let's unpack this a little bit, so we are clear.
Part of what is going on is that the police went so over the top that they appear to need these convictions as a form of self-justification.
In other words, spending on summit security was so exorbitant, and the systems of entrapment leading up to these arrests were so elaborate that at the end of the day they need something to show for their billion-dollar budget and their rampant civil liberties violations. A conspiracy -- not a movement.
And our friends are caught in that maze of self-righteousness, that web of self-justification.
And we need to get them out. And that is going to take good lawyers and lots of money.
So just to remind you: that is why we are here tonight. I know you paid a lot to get in, but consider whether you can give more. Especially those of you watching at home.
Because the burden that has been placed on these activists must somehow be shared by the broader community that opposed the G20.
By those of us who went to the protests that the arrestees helped to organize.
Now, there is something else about these cases that needs to be acknowledged. They fit a pattern that we have seen from the Tories again and again.
For years now they have been waging a not so silent war on artists whose political views they don't like. On students organizing Palestinian solidarity events, particularly Israeli Apartheid Week. That's what the conference on the "new anti-Semitism" is all about.
They have also waged war on NGOs that take political positions contrary to the government: The Canadian Arab Federation, Kairos, and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation.
With no sense of shame the Tories have tried to put these troublesome NGOs out of business.
Could it be that this same government seized the opportunity presented by the G20 to try to wipe out or at least weaken some of the country's most effective and militant anti-poverty, Indigenous solidarity and migrant rights groups?
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