All I want for Christmas is my human rights

>> Police and politicians clamp down on protesters any way they can

by JACQUIE CHARLTON

For a couple of foreign dictators and some local police this month, Christmas wishes finally came true.

Their long-cherished hopes that certain Canadians' human rights could be limited or abrogated were actually fulfilled this month by the RCMP, certain lawmakers and a smiling prime minister himself.

Here in Montreal, where hunger protests have begun cropping up again after 60 peaceful years, three out of a total of 108 people arrested for a hunger raid on a swank Queen Elizabeth Hotel restaurant were ordered to sign a pledge to stay away from future protests until the end of their trial. A Quebec Superior Court judge last week ruled the prohibition on protesting was unconstitutional, but not before two of the three, Yves Manseau and Alexandre Popovic, had spent nine days in jail for refusing to sign the pledge.

Gérard Lague, the prosecutor who ordered the prohibitions on the three men, told the Mirror the conditions were designed "to prevent the risk of recidivism and to protect society." Prosecutors, he said, act on the suggestions of the Montreal police. Manseau and Popovic, members of the Coalition opposée a la brutalité policière which publishes a bulletin on police wrongdoings, happen to be two people who are particularly unbeloved of the Montreal police. Manseau, for instance, whose only role in the Queen E. demonstration was to speak in a megaphone on human rights, was brought before court in handcuffs on the grounds he was a threat to public security. And Popovic, whose prior police reports sometimes include the words "known as a notorious anarchist" in its reasons for recommending incarceration, was painted in court, in his own words, as someone who protested round the clock and had nothing else to do in his life. "The police are getting involved in politics a lot now," Popovic told a CKUT reporter while he was in Bordeaux jail. "When the cops do politics, it's a bad sign."

Meanwhile, at the other end of the country, dictators like President Suharto of Indonesia, who knew they'd be uncomfortable with protesters at the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation Conference, got an assurance from the PM in October that they'd be out of sight and out of mind. And the PM delivered on his promise. Before the conference had even begun, people likely to protest were arrested and held in custody until they signed a pledge that they would not gather or protest against APEC or any APEC nation, including Canada. The prime minister's office even went so far as to break an agreement with the University of British Columbia on the site of the protest: police boundaries were extended so far from foreign delegates that the protest was just a speck in the distance. When protesters sitting peacefully on a road were thought to linger a little too long, they were sprayed with fire-extinguisher-sized cans of pepper spray.

Craig Jones, who was arrested in Vancouver for holding a cardboard sign with the words "Human Rights" on it--a sign, the RCMP told him, that could have been hurled dangerously at foreign dignitaries' limousines--is dumbfounded by it all. "A high school kid knows that arresting somebody for holding a sign is a breach of human rights. But the way they were acting was like, we can take away your rights now when it's expedient, and then apologize for it later when all the foreign dictators have gone home." Jones is suing the RCMP and the federal government for the way he was treated.

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There has been a lot of negative media attention on the repressive way in which the Montreal and Vancouver protests were handled, but some commentators desperately sought a more positive outlook.

In the Globe and Mail last week, lawyer, broadcaster and political commentator Jean Lapierre wondered in an op-ed piece what the hell the hunger protesters at the Queen E. were so worked up about. "Fine meals are generally a bargain (in Montreal); the price of lunch at Fouquet's in Montreal is the same as the price of one 'café-croissant' at Fouquet's in Paris... I should mention that it is possible to be a member of a top-quality golf club in the Montreal region for a paltry $500."

And perhaps the last word should go to the prime minister himself. When asked in a television interview last Thursday about his seemingly insensitive views on the pepper spraying of peaceful protesters ("For me, pepper is something I put on my plate"), Chrétien told anchors, "I made a joke. You know me. I tried to get you to laugh. Relax a bit in the nation, I say. Lots of people feel good in Canada because things are good. They can relax."