London solidarity for Quebec rebels

A UK solidarity action with the Quebec rebels is being held in London on the evening of Wednesday May 30.

The Defend the Right to Protest Campaign has called for a demonstration outside Canada House (5 Trafalgar Square) at 6pm. 

Below is what it says on its site: 

Faced with the biggest protests ever seen in Quebec by students fighting against an 80% hike in fees, police have been importing the same tactics used against students and other anti-cuts protesters in Britain by the discredited Metropolitan police.

This includes the deployment of notorious kettling tactics to intimidate protesters and mass arrests of protesters with over 2,500 arrested so far, along with indiscriminate police violence which has seen people suffer serious injury.

It has also seen the introduction of a draconian new law, Bill 78, which bans any protest within 50 meters of university buildings, imposing severe financial penalties on those involved in pickets or other protests deemed illegal, and requiring eight hours notice for any protest involving more than fifty people.

Quebec students are fighting the same battles fought by students in Britain over the past two years. They are an inspiration to many around the world confronted with unprecedented cuts and austerity measures.

On Wednesday 30th May protests in solidarity with the Quebec struggle will take place across Canada.

The whole world is watching!

Join the protest in London in solidarity with the Quebec students struggle against fees, and call for:

* The scrapping of Bill 78

* An immediate cessation of kettling, mass arrests and other police tactics designed to intimidate and punish protesters

* The freeing of any imprisoned protesters – drop the charges, conditions and fines imposed on protesters

We’re inspired by the three month long Quebec student strike and the popular uprising in Quebec against austerity and the anti-protest Law 78 that has mobilized entire neighborhoods throughout the province to bang pots and pans at 8pm since the 22nd of May.

A New York Times op-ed compared Charest’s government to Putin’s after he cracked down on students with draconian anti-protest laws, riot copsand cancelled the school semester rather than to negotiate with student unions.

A record breaking 2500 people have been arrested, 2 have lost an eye, several have suffered critical head injuries, and the resistance is only spreading.

The movement has gone from being called the “Printemps d’Erable” to being called the Maple Spread. Solidarity casserole banging has spread from neighborhoods in Montreal, throughout the province, the country, as well as New York, Paris, Latin America and now it’s time for London to join in too.

On Wednesday, May 30, starting at 6pm, in front of Canada House by Trafalgar Square in London, we are showing solidarity by banging pots and pans and flying red squares.

'When shit is fucked, fuck shit up'

ANGER is spreading over the Quebec authorities' fascistic new laws, as anti-neoliberal rebels call for global solidarity.

Reports The Edmonton Journal: "The unpredictable nightly protests that helped spur a government crackdown have largely been a Montreal-only affair — until now.

"Since Premier Jean Charest passed a law last week limiting protests in the province, defiant demonstrations have popped up in cities not known as hotbeds of activism.

"Small groups from Granby, south of Montreal, to Jonquiere, north of Quebec City, have joined Montrealers in taking to the streets with pots and pans to protest Bill 178.

"Their message is clear: This conflict is not just about tuition anymore."

And a call-out for worldwide solidarity with the struggle has been posted on Contra Info and elsewhere on the internet.

It says: "We want you to feel what we’re feeling. We know you feel something, but we want you to feel it like we feel it.

"We know that every time one of us goes to jail, every time a comrade in the streets loses their eye to the shrapnel of a concussion grenade or their ear to a rubber bullet to the head, that there are so many others who feel the heat of vengeance swell inside them.

"Knowing the global situation, knowing that people are approaching the breaking point not just here but everywhere, it needs to be insisted upon that what is happening in Québec is not exceptional.

"What has happened here can happen elsewhere and it needs to happen elsewhere. Everything we’re doing has been inspired by the revolts and uprisings that have taken hold in other places. If it can’t inspire social disruptions of its own, then it will die out quick.

"So this is a call out for solidarity as much as it’s our heartfelt hope that one day you’ll feel this around you as well. This needs to spread past Montréal, past Québec. Bring it to your cities and communities in whatever way you can, using whatever methods and means are at your disposal.

"Our hearts and heads are tired, but we’re still smiling.
We want to see the strike spread.
We want to see this social upheaval spread.

When shit is fucked, fuck shit up."

Quebec protesters resist plutofascism

MORE than 500 protesters have been arrested in Quebec, Canada, after they took to the streets to defy a neoliberal clamp-down.

The progression from phoney 'democracy' to real plutofascism could hardly be more clearly exposed than here.

The now-familiar laws are passed to increase student tuition fees as education and all other aspects of our society are privatised for the profit of the elite.

Faced with a massive and determined revolt by a new generation, what is the response of the authorities?

To back down and go along with the democratic consensus? No - to ramp up repression and pass draconian new laws to try and crush dissent.

Happily, the Quebec rebels are fighting the plutofascists every inch of the way, sending shockwaves across the world.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports, from Australia:  "What began as a protest against university fee increases has expanded to a wider movement to oppose Bill 78, which was rushed through by legislators in Quebec in response to the demonstrations.

"The bill imposes severe restrictions on protests, making it illegal for protesters to gather without having given police eight hours' notice and securing a permit.

"On Wednesday night, police in Montreal used 'kettling' techniques - officers surrounding groups of protesters and not allowing them in or out of the resulting circle - before conducting a mass arrest."

Adds the BBC: "Bill 78, passed last Friday, requires marches to follow pre-approved routes, but protesters say it infringes their democratic rights, and have pledged to legally contest it."

Below is the artwork submitted by protesters to police when they were asked to provide a map of their route.

Happy kids in anti-police riot

MONTREAL anarchists are euphoric after an anti-police protest achieved spectacular impact.

Said a statement on Anarchist News Dot Org: "We flipped over a policecar on rue Sainte-Catherine. Prole stroll.

"Everyone was like WHOO! and happy kids were dancing on the chassis, happy cuz they were right to be happy. Banks got their windows broken. Fancy stores too.

"A lot of garbage got pulled into the streets, and pylons, and heavy signs. You know, the usual. But it's the moments when the pigs backed off cuz they were scared! It's the moments when you get away with political crimes in totalitarian Canada!

"It's the moments when the pig cruiser is flipped over and you're highfiving strangers becuz you're happy and they're happy and this is a moment to cherish. Prole stroll!

"LE 15 MARS, LA VENGEANCE. We could've done better, but we did what we did, and this was the one day when the pacifists weren't out in force and the people who get harassed by the police on a daily basis were letting loose and we got to share some knowing looks with some of the kids we haven't seen since this time last year. This was our day, our night. Prole stroll!

"Some comrades are in jail. Many people, perhaps not yet aware of the fact that we live in a surveillance society, did things that perhaps they should not have done with their faces unconcealed.

"What happens next is hard to say. Maybe the pacifists who got beaten with police batons when they sat in front of cops will have learned their lesson by now! And maybe anarchists can figure out a way to be half as badass as some of the people who were on the streets tonight.

"The city is begging the province for more help with the security crisis: student demos everyday with more to come, and now this, the biggest March 15 in years, prole stroll like we ain't seen outside of a hockey riot, what is sure to be a big embarassment to North America's crowd control experts.

"THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO DO. Onward to March 22, onward to May Day, onward to the continental general strike and the infinite strike! Until neither the SPVM nor any other police agency nor any other institution of domination exist, our work isn't done.

"And to the kids who looted Future Shop and got some PS3s, MAD RESPECT. We GET what we can TAKE."

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Québec rebels defy police brutality

 
YOUNG rebels in Québec are coming under vicious attack from Canadian cops.

But anger and defiance are rising as a big day approaches - a demonstration against police brutality in Montreal on Thursday March 15.

Contra Info explains that a vast strike movement is shaking colleges and universities in the traditionally rebellious French-speaking province.

This general strike movement has set itself, as an immediate objective, the cancellation of the recent 25% tuition fees rise implemented by the neoliberal government of Québec.

"The movement is now 125,000 striking students strong and many strike votes will be held in the coming weeks by student assemblies.

"Many massive street demos gathering thousands of people, as well as blockade actions have been organized, triggering more and more police repression."

On March 7, the repressive violence went up a notch, as almost 1,000 people were blockading a downtown building in Montréal, hosting the offices of the public lotteries and the Conference of University Rectors.

About 200 people had gained entrance to the building, blocking access to the elevators, as the others occupied the doorways and the adjacent streets, raising barricade out of metal railings in order to block off busy Sherbrooke Street and to use as protection against police assaults.

Riot cops attacked the crowd, hitting the protesters with clubs and shields, soaking them with pepper spray and throwing many “stun grenades”.

One of these devices, that produce a deafening bang as well as projecting fragments and pepper gas, seriously injured a student protester, who received splinters in the right eye and has been taken to the hospital.

As of March 8, he was being operated on for retinal detachment and he might lose the use of his eye. Apparently, the riot police deliberately delayed the ambulance call. Three other protesters were also injured during the assault.

On the same night (March 7th), at about 9pm, a group of about 300 people gathered at the Berri Square, in response to the police attack, and took to the streets, shouting “Cops, Pigs, Murderers!”.

Reaching the administrative headquarters of the municipal police, some tried to smash the glass doors of the entrance with metal crowd barriers, before being chased through the streets by police.

Thursday's protest, and others planned for later in the month, seems more relevant than ever.

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