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Poster boy beats rap On a spring day last year, Jaggi Singh, the prominent local activist involved in the 1997 Vancouver APEC protests and those against the MAI in this city last year, was up to something relatively mundane: putting up posters on lampposts with a tape gun. A couple of policemen approached him and told him to cease. Postering is illegal under city bylaws. But Singh proceeded to put up another poster in front of them, confident he could ultimately prove in court that anti-postering laws were unconstitutional. The policemen slapped him with a $135 ticket. Singh proceeded to contest it and got Julius Grey, the noted civil rights lawyer, to represent him for free. The case was never heard. This week, only a few days before Singh's scheduled court appearance, the Crown withdrew the charges. Singh says he's certain it's because they knew they were going to lose. Municipal court attorneys did not return calls by press time. Singh believes this paves the way for a decriminalization of postering and a boost for street-level free speech. "Public spaces tend to be controlled by large corporations," he says. "Postering is one of the most democratic means of putting our ideas out there on the street." --Jacquie Charlton |