THE LIGUE DES DROITS ET LIBERTÉS CONDEMNS
PREVENTIVE ARRESTS AND
THE DENIAL OF THE RIGHT TO DEMONSTRATE

COMMUNIQUÉ DE PRESSE

Immediate release

THE LIGUE DES DROITS ET LIBERTÉS CONDEMNS
PREVENTIVE ARRESTS AND
THE DENIAL OF THE RIGHT TO DEMONSTRATE

The Ligue des droits et libertés condemns the police operation conducted in Dominion Square on April 26, 2002: this operation is a total denial of freedom of speech and of the right to demonstrate.

Around 300 people gathered in a park. They listened to speeches on the G-8, the environment. No violence in any form whatsoever had been reported by our observers before it was announced that the march would get under way. Suddenly, without any notice, warning or order to disperse, the police encircled the park, tightened their ranks and blocked all exits. Observers noted that it was impossible to identify the police since their registration numbers were not visible. Police allowed no one to leave: neither passers-by, nor elderly people, nor our own observers. No one was informed why they were being detained, crammed together even more tightly than in the subway. A police officer walked around spraying certain people in the police trap with pepper gas.

It was only three quarters of an hour after people were first encircled and pushed back into a compact group that the police announced that the persons detained were under arrest for unlawful assembly.

At 7 p.m., after several unfruitful interventions with police authorities, an officer freed the Ligue observers.

The procedure involving the arrests lasted four and a half hours during all of which people were obliged to remain jammed against one another, in a standing position. During all this time, there was no show of aggressiveness or confrontation by the people detained by the police. Each person was searched and put onto a bus and then released a certain distance away and given a ticket for the infraction of a municipal by-law.

The right to assemble and demonstrate is included in the constitutionally-protected freedom of expression. Police forces must not be allowed to determine under what conditions freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly can be exercised. Police have no authorization to proceed with preventive, abusive and arbitrary arrests.

Are we witnessing the total denial of the right to demonstrate?

Are we witnessing the introduction of the practice of preventive arrests?

Ligue des droits et libertés
(formerly known as the Quebec Civil Liberties Union)
Tel: (514) 849-7717 e-mail : l...@videotron.net

Source : Lucie Lemonde (514) 849-7717
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