Fruitful school endeavours

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"We gave out awards on June 28: oranges, limes and lemons for the best, not-so-good and worst actions by secondary schools, judging them by how they dealt with the problems of youth," says Yves Manseau, the leader of Mouvement action justice, a moderate group opposed to police brutality.

But Manseau says the prizes only came after two years of outreach work at the schools. "I have intervened myself several times when students were arrested or suspended," he says, adding that the interventions caused police and school authorities to back down.

The best prize went to Polyvalente St-Henri, which Manseau says has made great strides in chilling-out an atmosphere of hostility between school authorities and troublesome students.

Polyvalente Jeanne-Mance, which collaborated in March with police in a raid at the school to arrest a number of youths suspected of dealing drugs, got the lemon.

Manseau says there's an unrecognized pattern of abuse of students' civil rights in Montreal.

"There are many cases where students have been told they'll be kicked out if they don't tell on their friends," says Manseau. "Students have also been arrested as gang members just because they were part of the same ethnic group." : --John Edmonds

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