"No Justice, No Peace, F--k the Police!" [English]

[ Texte français dans l'image suivante]

 

I was on St. Denis Sunday night. I saw police activity, so I knew the student protests were nearby, but I was not expecting to immediately see them march down the street, which is what they did. This photo gives a very representative sample of the protestors. An estimated 4,000 people went by over 15 minutes, almost all of European background, and giving the appearance of having spent more time in libraries than in jails. Nevertheless, much of the demonstration, especially the first fifty percent of people that passed by, was chanting a single incendiary chant "No justice, no peace, f--k the police!" (My flickr account is "safe", hence the mild censorship). At the time of the photos, this was a legal march. It was later declared "illegal" after some people threw concrete blocks at the police. The arrests that occurred involved "kettling" tactics, but were many hours after the march was declared illegal.

 

The tuition battle resonates in Quebec because in the 1960's, French Quebec was one of the most poorly educated societies in North America. Quebecers take pride in one accomplishment of the "Quiet Revolution", which was universal access to free or very low-cost education from primary school to university, and the introduction of Quebec's unique CEGEP system. Many Quebecois are willing to defend their right to accessible education with the same emotion as many Texans are willing to defend their right to own guns.

 

The passage of Law 78, which took effect Friday May 18 at midnight, places restrictions on demonstrations, including requiring notification of the police at least 8 hours in advance, a requirement to not obscure faces, and provides severe penalties (up to $5,000/day for individuals or $125,000/day for organizations) both for ignoring these restrictions and for aiding others in ignoring these restrictions. Fines are doubled for the second and subsequent offenses. Does this mean that unions that offer to pay the fines or legal expenses of students could be subjected to bankrupting fines themselves? The new law created a level of anger that did not previously exist.

 

The students may have an enemy in Charest, but the police are just doing their job. There have been large numbers of arrests and frequent use of normal riot control tactics, but nothing comparable to the mass beatings of civil rights marchers that occurred in Selma, Alabama in 1965. Thus, the students (and not just a handful of anarchists) turning their anger onto the police is a disturbing development, which I think distracts from their main goals.

Done