A-Infos (en) Canada, Quebek, EMERGENCY FOR A-INFOS!! MASSIVE REPRESSION IN QUEBEC (fr)

[morris bubuv <mbubuv@yahoo.com>]

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*ARRESTS NOW TOTALIZE 450 AS OF SUNDAY APRIL 22th, at
1pm*

*THE NIGHT OF CONFRONTATION DIDN'T END UNTIL EARLY
THIS MORNING*


Quebec-city, april 22 2001, 1pm - Durning the
mega-union-demo of more than 30,000 people yesterday
(Saturday) several thousand peoples moved to up-town
to attack the security perimeter. The Black Bloc and
unionists (most notably from the car industry)
committed several spectacular actions (we are talking
of several breach in the fence). 

Police repression was intense, the air was
unbreathable in at least 2 popular neigborhood of the
downtown areas. Confrontation between protestors and
riot police lasted for over 14 hours on different
fronts and police launched around 1000 tear gas
canisters, in some instances they fired 30 of them in
one minute, according to live reports from the radio

It seems there was not alot of vandalism (besides
banks and multinationals) but fires were lighted up in
the street at numerous spots. The cops gradually
retook control of the streets in the upper city at the
end of the evening, menawhile thousands of people
converged towards giant street partys in downtown
areas. 

Actually, authorities are speaking of a total of 450
arrests since the summit started last friday
(including alot of mass arrests, including a group of
thirty people accused of being in possession of
Molotov coktails. As we're filling this report, legal
committee confirmed to us that 200 arrested people are
actually waiting inside police buses in front of
Orsainville prison, some of them were actually
detained in these buses for around 10 hours). 

Cops make a strip search of the arrested before they
make them enter the prison, and after that they  go
through a shower because of the high concentration of
tear gas residues over their skin and clothes. For a
couple of hours, strip searches were made in full view
of everybody, men and women included.

Latest figure say 34 cops and 60 demonstrators were
wounded (but it's probably a conservative figure on
the protestors side). Cops are shooting plasctic
bullets in the upper body of protestors, causing bad
wounds, like a guy who had his jaw broken after being
hit with plastic bullets in the face. Also, an
individual is actually going through an operation at
an intesive care unit after receiving a plastic bullet
at the level of his throat.

Rights and Liberty League just finished a presse
conference in which they denounced horizontal
shootings of tear gas greandes on demonstrators and
shooting of electric discharges with taser guns on
peaceful protestors who were simply doing a sit-in. 

At the court, defense lawyers are actually trying to
force the court to make physical appearance (abbeas
corpus) of forty arrested people because, until now,
all court appearance were made through video from
Orsainville jail. Court's warders blocked the access
of the court to the public even though judge Yvon
Mercier stated yesterday that the court proceedings
aren't closed to the public.

Only 11 persons arrested in last friday have been able
to go through video-appearance yesterday (saturday).
Crown prosecutors have been succesfull in arguing for
the next video-appearance to be next Wednesday,
despite the fact that they have not produced yet any
evidence against them. Charges range from "obstructing
police work", "possessing weapons" and "participating
in a riot".

Intense police surveillance of local anarchists
confirms itself. Were looking for who was arrested and
who wasn't. We'll know more after CLAC's and CASA's
general assembly this afternoon. For now, a solidarity
march will take place today, at 2 pm this afternoon.

Thanks alot to continue to protest against this
massive repression.


Nicolas Phebus
Emile-Henry Anarchist Group (NEFAC-Quebec)
Francophone secretariat of the NEFAC

Alexandre Popovic
Collective Opposed to Police Brutality


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