Reports filter in minute-by-minute to the CMAC: the Summit has been temporarily shut down by the protesters, police violence and arrests continue.

ACTIVISTS SUCCESSFULLY SHUT DOWN SUMMIT, POLICE VIOLENCE CONTINUES

By Cliff Pearson, co-chair
Green Party of Dallas County
Dallas, Texas USA 75214

(QUEBEC CITY, Quebec) - CMAC, the Quebec Independent Media Center has just been informed that the Summit of the Americas, the treaty negotiating session designed to produce the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, have been postponed for the evening.

According to mainstream news sources, anti-FTAA protesters were successful in temporarily halting the treaty negotiations for over an hour. There are unconfirmed reports filtering into the CMAC that the Summit may be canceled for tomorrow and until further notice.

CMAC staff members continue to announce to the "newsroom" the arrests of activists and continuing police violence.

At approximately 10:00 p.m., CMAC was informed and was able to visible confirm that the police have surrounded and barricaded the CMAC headquarters building to the north near Rue Cote d`Abraham and to the south near Rue Dorchester. CMAC urges that all leaving the CMAC building use extreme caution or face possible arrest.

Simultaneously, there is a report by an eyewitness of his car being borken into by seven uniformed police officers. (This story is pending and will be made available via the Quebec IMC Web site, www.quebec.indymedia.org).

At 9:50 p.m. Quebec time CMAC staff members confirmed the launhing of tear-gas on an unknown number of protesters at Rue Richlieau in Quebec City.

At 9:40 p.m. reports from the field came into the CMAC newsroom of police firing plastic bullets at a crowd of protesters near the security fence on Rue Cote d`Abraham. CMAC journalists have confirmed that 12 people have been arrested and were injured in the scuffle with police. Also we have reports that an unknown number of police officers were injured. The nature of these alleged injuries are presently unknown.

As of this moment, CMAC does not yet know who was arrested or where they are being taken, but eyewitnesses report that those arrested were "not doing anything but sitting and watching the police."

Reports from eyewitness independent reporters are currently pouring in to the CMAC newsroom that approximately 400 protesters at Rene Levesque, the site near the Grand Theatre where the earlier fence-destruction had taken place, are being warned by police that they are engaged in an "unlawful assembly" and must "disperse or face arrest." It is unclear at this time how many, if any, of the protesters left the scene as ordered.

At approximtely 9:00 p.m. Quebec time, CMAC learned that a young man standing outside CMAC was arrested and taken off by Quebec City Police. Details are still forthcoming, so no one yet knows who he was or why he was arrested.

On a lighter note, this reporter`s traveling companions, Mike Moren and Ryan Foster, have been located. They were at the Grand Theatre as well, and were also tear-gassed as I was. They too needed medical attention but are fine now. Ryan and I are currently covering the CMAC newsroom. Mike Moren is not here, and I still haven`t seen him, but Ryan assures me he is near one of the actions and is fine.

More details as they come in.

Cliff Pearson, Quebec IMC.