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Queen E court heats up More accustomed to bikers than anarchists, the Quebec court system was in an uproar last Thursday when the appearances of 48 people charged in the Dec. 3 hunger protest at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel turned into an act of civil disobedience. One protester refused an order to be fingerprinted alone and had to be dragged bodily out of the court room by police, and more later banged and kicked the door of a crown prosecutor's office before the latter was escorted out by half a dozen security guards. >> Patrick Borden, the protester dragged out of the courtroom for refusing the fingerprinting order, did so because his request for a civilian to accompany him to the lab was denied. As for the 25 or so protesters who footprinted Crown Prosecutor Gerald Lague's door, they were seeking answers to why the hearings were being postponed. (After Borden's forced removal, the presiding judge ordered that defendants appear one by one in court, and that supporters be barred from the courtroom. Then, he decided to postpone the hearings to a later date.) Lague refused to talk to them. >> Yves Manseau of Citoyen(ne)s opposé(e)s à la brutalité policière, who was refused entrance into the courtroom as an observer the next day, says Lague has a lot to answer for. "They're pressing charges against everybody, even though only a few people took the food and ate it," Manseau says. "The prosecutors are accomplices with the police in repressing the activists." --Jacquie Charlton & Philip Preville
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