After viewing hours of G20 Summit videos and images the above image sums up the G20 Toronto Summit of 2010. The Canadian government unlawfully authorized the police, our sworn protectors and servants, to stomp on our Canadian rights and freedoms for a few foreign dignitaries and bankers. Throughout the 2 day summit our police were the anarchists, the attackers, the assailants, the kidnappers and conspirators in the darkest 48 hours in Canadian history.
Community groups across the country are calling on the public to come forward with photos, video, and eye witness accounts of police violence against civilians during the G20 summit in Toronto on June 26 and 27 of this year. This evidence will be used to ensure that there are consequences for all those who beat and injured people, and for the masterminds who conspired to plan and give orders for the widespread police violence and repression that was experienced by thousands on the streets.
In just 48 hours rogue officers acted in total disregard for the law. Either these rogue cops acted alone or they were part of a coordinated conspiracy by police chiefs and politicians that led to injuries, the detention of organizers, and the largest arbitrary mass arrest in modern Canadian history. This is not democratic nor civilized behavior that should be commended, this is behavior that should be investigated and those who committed these unlawful acts must be removed from the force and indicted for their crimes. The public is demanding an independent investigation into the severe and widespread abuses of police power that occurred during the G20 meetings in Toronto, and the collusion of politicians in making and executing those plans.
Canadians across the country are demanding an investigation into the policing of the G20 Summit in Toronto and calling for clear consequences including firings, and prosecution of those responsible for abuses including:
1. Arbitrary detainment, illegal searches and seizures, mass arrests and abhorrent conditions in detention.
2. Serious injuries to protesters, including while in handcuffs.
3. Illegal, repeated strip searches, threats of rape, and molestation at arbitrary detention centers.
4. Discrimination against deaf people, women, LGBTQ people, Quebecois, organizers, others.
5. Illegally passing of secret laws limiting civil rights, and then misleading the public about their nature.
Throughout the G20 Summit in Toronto no police officer was ever seen arresting those who were actually engaging in acts of vandalism and violence against both private and public property. Plain clothes police officers, numbered in the hundreds, were mingling amongst the protesters throughout the G20 Summit yet not one of them performed their duties as police officers and stepped forward to legally arrest (identifying themselves as police officer by displaying their badge or police ID and informing the person being arrested as to why they are being arrested and then reading the arrested person their rights) those who were causing damage to property along the G20 demonstration routes. Instead the police officer attacked, assaulted, kidnapped and arbitrarily detained hundreds of peaceful G20 Summit protesters, innocent bystanders and curious local residents. The media is equally to blame for this mass injustice by the police for they dared to imply that somehow the legal right of all Canadians to protest and to take part in peaceful protests are illegal and the unlawful police acts are legal.
Dr. Abeer Majeed, a family physician and member of Toronto Street Medics, was on the streets during the G20 Summit weekend, providing emergency care to injured protesters.
“It is of great concern to us medics that there has not yet been any meaningful, binding public inquiry launched into large scale extreme violence we witnessed against people exercising their right to dissent and bystanders,” said Majeed.
Majeed and her medical colleagues treated protesters “with serious trauma from blows to the head by police batons, fractures and soft tissue injuries.”
She noted that the majority of injuries treated did not take place during the rampage on Saturday afternoon, when store windows were smashed.
Majeed was on the south lawn at Queen’s Park on Saturday afternoon when she witnessed injuries caused by charging horses, pepper spray and blows to the head and bodies by police batons.
“Most of those injured fell behind police lines,” she said. “Street Medics were prevented from reaching and providing care to them by the police.”
“All of the serious injuries we saw and treated were caused by police violence,” said Dr. Abeer Majeed . “We did not come across any police officers or bystanders who were injured by demonstrators. The police abuses that we witnessed against people caused significant trauma, injuries and a shattering of the public trust. It is imperative that there is accountability and there are consequences for these senseless, violent, and dangerous actions.”
Canadian Bill of Rights
PART I
BILL OF RIGHTS
1. It is hereby recognized and declared that in Canada there have existed and shall continue to exist without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex, the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely,
(a) the right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law;
(b) the right of the individual to equality before the law and the protection of the law;
(c) freedom of religion;
(d) freedom of speech;
(e) freedom of assembly and of association; and
(f) freedom of the press.
2. Every law of Canada shall, unless it is expressly declared by an Act of Parliament of Canada that it shall operate notwithstanding the Canadian Bill of Rights, be so construed and applied as not to abrogate, abridge or infringe or to authorize the abrogation, abridgment or infringement of any of the rights or freedoms herein recognized and declared, and in particular, no law of Canada shall be construed or applied so as to
(a) authorize or effect the arbitrary detention, imprisonment or exile of a person;
(b) impose or authorize the imposition of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment;
(c) deprive a person who has been arrested or detained
(i) of the right to be informed promptly of the reason for his arrest or detention,
(ii) of the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay, or
(iii) of the remedy by way of habeas corpus for the determination of the validity of his detention and for his release if the detention is not lawful;
(d) authorize a court, tribunal, commission, board or other authority to compel a person to give evidence if he is denied counsel, protection against self-crimination or other constitutional safeguards;
(e) deprive a person of the right to a fair hearing in accordance to the principles of fundamental justice for the determination of his rights and obligations;
(f) deprive a person charged with a criminal offence of the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to the law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, or of the right to reasonable bail without just cause; and
(g) deprive a person of the right to the assistance to an interpreter in any proceedings in which he is involved or in which he is a party or a witness, before a court, commission, board or other tribunal, if he does not understand or speak the language in which such proceedings are conducted.
The ban on arbitrary detention is enshrined in Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The right is enshrined in Articles 9 and 11 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
Article 9
1. Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law.
2. Anyone who is arrested shall be informed, at the time of arrest, of the reasons for his arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against him.
3. Anyone arrested or detained on a criminal charge shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorized by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release. It shall not be the general rule that persons awaiting trial shall be detained in custody, but release may be subject to guarantees to appear for trial, at any other stage of the judicial proceedings, and, should occasion arise, for execution of the judgment.
4. Anyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings before a court, in order that that court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his detention and order his release if the detention is not lawful.
5. Anyone who has been the victim of unlawful arrest or detention shall have an enforceable right to compensation.
On June 26 and 27 2010 politicians, local, provincial and federal, and the police of the GTA did commit crimes that are forbidden under Canadian and International Law. Police did attack, assault, kidnap and arbitrarily detain hundreds of civilians who were lawfully exercising their lawful right to free speech, freedom of assembly and of association; and
freedom of the press. Politicians have committed a criminal offense by secretly passing a law that gave the police special powers not expressly declared by an Act of Parliament of Canada. Journalists and volunteers who provided first aid at the G20 protests are calling for an independent investigation into injuries caused by police. “There has been a lot of focus on violence against property, but we are calling attention to violence against people,” said Sarah Reaburn, a nurse. “People were beaten simply for exercising their right to demonstrate”.
