[696] in peace2
police provocation and inhuman prison conditions
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (poetry and revolution before break)
Tue Apr 24 12:46:44 2001
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 12:46:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: poetry and revolution before breakfast <popp@MIT.EDU>
To: <peace-list@mit.edu>
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oy.
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Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 07:15:29 -0700 (PDT)
To: popp@mit.edu
> two articles from the montreal gazette - c
>
> --------------
>
> Monday 23 April 2001
>
> Cops provoked riots: rights league
>
> CHARLIE FIDELMAN The Gazette
>
> Intense waves of tear gas and the use of water cannons and
> plastic bullets in a show of police muscle played a key role in
> provoking the violent bedlam that hit Quebec City on Saturday,
> human-rights observers say.
>
> "Police went too far. It's a form of repression," said Andre
> Paradis, head of the Ligue des Droits et Libertes, which had
> teams of observers monitoring events surrounding the Summit of
> the Americas.
>
> The watchdog group said it deplored what it called an
> unjustified switch in police tactics around the security
> perimeter yesterday. The tougher tactics were in stark contrast
> to the "calm and restraint" shown on the first day of the
> summit, it said.
>
> "More police muscle and intense, very intense tear gas is a
> factor that contributed to what happened later," Paradis said,
> referring to the violent clashes and a rash of bonfires, broken
> windows and other property damage inflicted in the lower part of
> the city early yesterday morning.
>
> Right from the beginning of Saturday's confrontations, police
> use of tear gas was escalated from the day before, league member
> Sam Boskey said. Tear gas was used long before some protesters
> tore down parts of the chain-link fence, piercing the security
> perimeter briefly in at least two areas, he said.
>
> Waves of tear gas and water blasts drove protesters down
> residential streets. "It was a mop-up operation" by the police,
> Boskey said.
>
> Radicals Denounced
>
> But the group also denounced the "5 per cent" of protesters who
> lobbed Molotov cocktails, bricks, bottles and other projectiles
> over the fence at police. A large majority of the thousands of
> people in the streets were protesting peacefully, singing songs
> and chanting, Paradis said.
>
> But because of the police tactics, "many were severely injured,
> including one man who had an emergency tracheotomy after being
> hit with a (plastic) bullet in the Adam's apple," he said.
>
> The continuous firing of plastic bullets and tear-gas canisters,
> directly and at close range, was "unjustifiable and dangerous,"
> Paradis said.
>
> He cited the shooting of a demonstrator with a stun gun as an
> act of police brutality. "He was lying in the street and he
> posed no threat."
>
> There was also direct gassing of people trying to help the
> injured, he said.
>
> The group also expressed concerns about the treatment arrested
> demonstrators received at Orsainville prison.
>
> People who had been exposed to tear gas were made to strip, in
> full view of police and visitors, while getting a change of
> clothes, said league member and Universite de Montreal
> criminology professor Jean-Claude Bernheim.
>
> And some protesters seeking legal aid were denied access to
> lawyers for up to 24 hours, Bernheim charged.
>
> Some of those arrested were detained in a bus for up to 10
> hours, while others were confined to prison cells with up to
> five others, he said.
>
> The league will be compiling a report in the coming weeks,
> Paradis said. It also expects to decide shortly whether to file
> complaints with police, the provincial justice minister or the
> Quebec Human Rights Commission.
>
>
> Copyright 2001 CanWest Interactive and The Montreal Gazette
> Group Inc., a division of Southam Publications, a CanWest
> Company.
>
>
> -----------------------
>
> Monday 23 April 2001
>
>
> Five to a bed in Orsainville cells
>
> CATHERINE SOLYOM and JANE DAVENPORT; PHILIP AUTHIER of The
> Gazette contributed to this report The Gazette
>
>
> More than 200 Summit of the Americas protesters in detention at
> Orsainville prison just outside Quebec City are being held in
> inhuman conditions, several released late yesterday afternoon
> said.
>
> "It's unbelievable," Benoit Cyr of Sainte-Foy said as he emerged
> from the prison compound. "The first thing I'm going to do is
> call the media to denounce what it's like in there."
>
> New York-based photographer Chip East, detained at Orsainville
> since Friday afternoon, described conditions as "Third-World."
>
> "This prison is disgusting. I was made to walk barefoot through
> two inches of water back and forth from an interrogation room
> six times. It reeked of urine and there were bits of food
> floating in the water," said East, on assignment with Time
> magazine in Quebec City after returning from the Middle East.
>
> "I've spent time in Third World countries and in war zones where
> conditions were better."
>
> East was arrested inside the security perimeter, despite the
> $10,000 of camera equipment wrapped around his neck and his
> accreditation from a number of news organizations in plain view.
> Charged with disguising himself with a gas mask with intent to
> commit an indictable offence, taking part in a riot, assaulting
> a peace officer and resisting arrest, he is now in the
> solitary-confinement wing, awaiting a bail hearing Wednesday.
>
> Protesters, on the other hand, spent the night in crowded cells.
> They told East they had been kept without food, water or access
> to a bathroom for eight hours inside a police van before being
> taken to the jail, their hands blue from the plastic wrist
> restraints that cut off their circulation.
>
> Once in the jail, corrections officers dressed in surgical gear
> had the protesters strip to douse them in disinfectant because
> they were contaminated by tear gas - or simply considered
> unclean.
>
> "They had to be searched and decontaminated," explained Surete
> du Quebec Inspector Robert Poeti. "So yes, they had to be nude."
>
> Cyr, who was arrested Saturday afternoon, said that after the
> shower, he vied for floor space with four other protesters who
> early in the morning were thrust into a cell with only one bed.
>
> "They're tired, it's cold - you have to sleep somewhere, and
> there's nowhere," he said.
>
> Early yesterday, 230 were taken to Orsainville after
> confrontations with the police in the lower city around 4 a.m.
> left a number of store and bank windows shattered and the air
> heavy with tear gas.
>
> East said the protesters banged against their cell bars all
> night. According to Cyr, at least some of the banging was a
> fruitless attempt to get medical attention for a prisoner who
> was having difficulty breathing.
>
> By the time Cyr was released, the man, who was arrested
> yesterday morning, had still not been helped, he said.
>
> About 70 demonstrators rallied outside the prison yesterday,
> playing drums, dancing and banging on flagpoles amidst chilly
> winds and under the sardonic eyes of about 20 police officers.
>
> They cheered as their friends began to trickle out of the prison
> one by one. By 5 p.m., six, including one woman, had been
> released.
>
> Each checked in with the demonstrators' legal team, which is
> keeping a record of alleged rights violations.
>
> Orsainville Warden Michel Roberge would not comment on what
> charges had been laid or the conditions inside the cells. He did
> say the prison had adopted a "special protocol" this weekend,
> whereby no one, not even friends or family, could visit with any
> of the detainees until tomorrow.
>
> Last month, Quebec Public Security Minister Serge Menard said
> the provincial government was freeing up space in Orsainville to
> be "humanitarian."
>
> "It's not a hotel, but there will be beds, you can wash, you can
> eat hot meals, you can meet with lawyers, there will be
> interpreters and international observers."
>
> Observers say he hasn't kept his promise. Not having enough beds
> was one of several problems cited.
>
> "What shocked us the most was that they had to share cells
> without enough beds and no blankets while there was plenty of
> space... for them to have a cell each," said former Bloc
> Quebecois MP Daniel Turp, one of five independent observers of
> the summit named by Menard. "They were not given adequate food
> and water, nor did they appear in court within 24 hours of their
> arrest."
>
> Menard, who yesterday declared "mission accomplished" in terms
> of police behaviour, admitted one flaw in the elaborate plan for
> the event was incarceration of protesters.
>
> Authorities grossly underestimated the time it would take to
> decontaminate prisoners before putting them in their cells, he
> said. Two showers at the prison for 200 prisoners arriving in
> one shot was clearly not enough, he said.
>
> "If it was to be redone, we'd find a better way to organize
> ourselves."
>
>
