Montréal Contre-information
Montréal Contre-information
Montréal Contre-information

Demo Against The Police Of Maniwaki (and all other)

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Feb 012018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Gathering at Place Émilie-Gamelin, tonight (February 1) at 19h

With every bullet, we are reminded that the police are murderers. Yesterday, they once again opened fire on someone – an 18 year old who remain anonymous – who was acting with hostility at the courthouse in Maniwaki. Last summer Pierre Coriolan was gunned down by the police while he was having a mental health crisis. In the winter of 2016, Bony Jean-Pierre was murdered by police. As long as this deadly order is imposed on us, we will not forget, and we will not forgive.

We don’t yet know whether this young man who was shot in the head will survive, and if so, in what state. Let’s remember that shootings like these are only a visible fraction of the rampant police harassment that many face on a daily basis, a type of violence that makes up the foundation of the colonial, capitalist and statist order.

This attack is a drop of water in the ocean of police violence. But we refuse that it becomes just another statistic, another passing moment of outrage that nourishes cynicism.

We call for a demo to stop the automatic movement of daily life, and to honor life that rises against the order of the police in a thousand and one ways.

We call for a demo in the hope that it won’t be just an image of protest against the violence and absurdity of the world, but so that fear can actually switch sides.

Let’s come together to brave the frozen winter (the forecast is 3 degrees, so come!!!) and act against this terrible event.

Fuck every cop, their friends, sympathizers, and anyone not willing to choose a side.
No peace in the street with the police in the streets!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZpZqPxvS9o

Protest Against Police Brutality 2018

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Jan 242018
 

From Collectif Opposé à la Brutalité Policière

For more than over 20 years now, the C.O.B.P. has been inviting all citizens to participate in demonstrations aiming to express anger towards the fact that the Quebec Police corps feeds off of repression, profiling and brutality. Each year, we issue several claims pertaining to the police’s intervention methods, their abuse and the impunity that is of second nature to their profession. This year is no exception : the Collectif Opposé à la Brutalité Policière invites you to take to the streets on March 15, 2018, in order to express by all means necessary our refusal to bow down to the colonial and capitalist authority that is the police. It is of utmost importance to highlight the fact that this demonstration will take place on unsurrendered indigenous territory which the Quebec political class continues to think is an area that it governs.

The behaviours demonstrated by the police towards which we take offence are particularly extensive. However, this year, we think it is paramount to expose the complicity that exists within members of the Quebec police corps in relation to far-right groups, anti-immigration groups and islamophobic groups. It is because of this complicity that racist group gatherings are allowed to take place without having to face counter-demonstration. Indeed, police repression is now exercised towards counter-demonstration, to the benefit of far right and neo-Nazi groups. The result is that violent and pro-arms anti-immigration groups are freely allowed to disseminate their propaganda.

We also need to highlight the fact that the Quebec media is partially responsible for the rise in far-right groups when they work to discredit the anti-fascist ideology and its efforts. The media goes as far as to publish weak comparisons between the pressure tactics used by the far-left and the extremely violent attacks perpetrated by the far-right. It is as though the tragic attack against the mosque in St-Foy, which took the life of several innocent bystanders, never happened. Certain media outlets continue to feed the far-right by falsely explaining that an attack such as this one was fuelled by islamophobic hate.

This year, the C.O.B.P. wishes to express feelings of revolt towards the media, towards the rise of far-right groups and towards the entire Quebec police corps. We are calling upon all Quebec citizens to push against the rise of the far-right by all means necessary. For years now, we have been saying that the police are in bed with fascist wealth and this year, the police force has demonstrated this more than ever.

Here is the reason why we are joining the anti-fascist struggle and inviting you to Parc La Fontaine on March 15th for a « 5 à 7 » cocktail event where food will be served and where you can take the floor to express your opinions (organized by SOS initinérance), followed at 7:30 pm by the actual annual demonstration against police brutality, which will also take off from Parc La Fontaine.

EVERYONE HATES THE POLICE… AND THE FASCISTS!

The Collective Opposed to Police Brutality

Solidarity Demo Outside Laval Prisons for the New Year!

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Jan 032018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

On New Year’s Eve, for the sixth year in a row, a noise demonstration was held in front of the Laval prisons. Despite the freezing cold, this year was marked by the greatest participation since the beginning of this tradition. More than a hundred people walked chanting “Everybody hates the police!” and “For a world without prisons or detention centers!”, the whole thing accompanied by percussion, banners, whistles and fireworks in large quantities.

The group arrived in front of Montée Saint-François Institution (B-16), where the minimum security allowed us to be in direct contact with the detainees. Thanks to the windows directly facing the street, they could wave to us, see the banners and hear us. The second institution we visited was Leclerc, the former and outdated federal prison that was converted to a provincial prison for in 2015 and was a provincial prison for men and women until this summer, when it became just a provincial prison for women. The prison is very far from the road and access to it is usually prevented by the police, but the large number of people this year made it possible to get through and around the police lines with joy, everyone engaging in a rather funny race in the snow, during which several policemen were able to intimately appreciate the coolness of the powder. The inefficacy of the police allowed us to set off many fireworks in close proximity to the prison. At the same time, another group of people slipped to the opposite side of the prison to fire fireworks near the buildings where the prisoners are housed.

All this continued in front of the Laval Immigration Detention Centre, where we recalled the importance of opposing the Federal Government’s project to replace the existing building with a new immigration detention centre in Laval. This project is part of a broader effort to expand the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA)’s capacity to imprison and deport migrants. We want to see a world without borders, where everyone has access to the things they need to live with dignity. Imprisoning migrants, denying them a place to stay, and deporting them to situations of extreme danger are things we directly oppose.

The big charivari ended at the Federal Training Center, a multi level, medium and minimum security prison. When our group finally decided to split in two for the return to the bus, the police chose to take advantage of the reduced number of people to make an arrest. Fortunately, the arrested person was released the same evening, but has judicial charges.

Prisons were created to isolate people from their communities. Noise demonstrations at prisons are a concrete way to fight against repression and isolation. We want to extend a message of solidarity to folks inside and wish them a happy new year- although a truly happy new year would be one without prisons or borders and the world that needs them!

NYE Prison Noise Demo

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Dec 072017
 

From sub.Media

Join us this New Year’s Eve to send loud messages of solidarity to those spending the holidays behind bars, as we celebrate ongoing prisoner resistance, and renew our commitment to fighting for a world without prisons!

Balancesheet on the November 25 Counterdemonstration

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Dec 032017
 

From Montréal-Antifasciste

The joint La Meute/Storm Alliance demonstration of November 25, 2017 promised to be the largest far-right mobilization in Québec since the 1930s. The organizers anticipated a thousand people turning out to denounce the Commission publique contre le racisme systémique, which, ironically, the Liberal government cancelled on October 18.[1] At the end of the day, even the two groups and their allies from the nationalist groupuscules, the Three Percenters, the Northern Guard, and the boneheads from the Soldiers of Odin and Atalante only collectively reached half that number (300 to 400 max). Nonetheless, this mobilization could still mark a qualitative and symbolic watershed for the fascist drift in the province—a drift that police forces are more openly supporting, and in which many “mainstream” political actors are complicit.

While, in Montréal this year, we got used to the SPVM acting as a security force for La Meute and the other identitarian groupuscules, never was the collusion between the police and the far-right organizations as flagrant as it was in Quebec City on November 25. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Service de police de la Ville de Québec (SPVQ) brutally repressed antifascists, beating us with batons and shields, pepper spraying us, and making “preventive” arrests, with the clear goal of permitting the identitarians and fascists (some of whom were openly carrying batons and mace) to spread their hatred and racism unopposed in the province’s capital city. Additionally, the multiple approaches used by the media to demonize antifascist counterdemonstrators, both before and after the demonstration, contributed to normalizing the identitarian groups’ toxic discourse.

That said, we have to face the fact that we in the antifascist and antiracist movement have an enormous amount of work to do to make clear the urgent danger posed by the increasing shift to the far right. The various militant groups involved were only able to mobilize around 250 people to face off with the fascists at the Assemblée nationale.

An Underwhelming Antifascist Mobilization

To begin with, the Rassemblement populaire contre la manif de La Meute et Storm Alliance à Québec!, which the Quebec City ad hoc antiracist collective “CO25” put a lot of energy and thought into organizing, only drew a few hundred people, including those who made the trip from Montréal, who made up almost half of the assembled group, which was also augmented by small groups of comrades from Saguenay, Estrie, and elsewhere in the province.

Although a variety of objective factors undermined the mobilization (the time of year, the cold shitty weather, the early morning bus departure from Montréal, etc.), we also need to consider a certain number of complementary factors.

It was no coincidence that the major media published a series of articles demonizing the “far left” in the days leading up to the demonstration. The negative presentation of antifascists, treated as interchangeable with the far left, is an established approach that has only gotten worse since last August 20 in Quebec City. The negative image of antifascists that has been publicly fostered rests in no small part on a biased perception of violence and a dishonest portrayal of the far left and the far right as equivalent.

There’s simply no denying that the events of last August 20, some incidents in particular, seriously undermined the credibility of the antifascist movement, even in some circles that are would normally be sympathetic to us. Not everything, however, can be explained away by the media coverage. It’s pretty obvious that we are collectively having an enormous problem breaking through the hegemony of a particular legalist, pacifist, and pronouncedly nonviolent discourse, which could be described as “extreme centrism.” This sort of ideological monopoly, characterized by a rigid pseudo-ethic wrapped around a woolly ideological core, primarily serves the interest of the far right, which in its quest for legitimacy is making sure to cooperate with the police and to project a law and order image that belies the much greater and much worse violence at the heart of its programme.

To put it another way, given that the state, the far right, the media, and even certain progressive personalities have banded together to demonize the antiracist and antifascist movements, our movements face an uphill battle of popular education and the deconstruction of centrist myths.

We also have to recognize that racism is greeted with a high degree of tolerance in Québec, particularly outside of Montréal. Recall that the famous Commission publique contre le racisme systémique—which certainly didn’t pose a radical threat of any sort—was harshly criticized by the two main opposition parties, before being cancelled by the Liberal Party, which for abject electoral reasons replaced it with the a meaningless “Forum sur la valorisation de la diversité et la lutte contre la discrimination.” That very same week the Liberal Party passed the Islamophobic Bill 62, which is now facing constitutional court challenges. Without fail, surveys conducted in Québec confirm a strong popular sympathy for anti-immigrant and Islamophobic ideas, particularly in communities with few (or no) Muslims or immigrants, but which are inundated by trash media and the fear it whips up against the “other.” It’s a context where hostility toward antifascists is fed by both anti-left conservatism and a xenophobia that rejects and disdains anything that is not “de souche.”

On the other hand, the very structure of the social media that we are overly dependent on in our organizing favours echo chambers where users inevitably end up interacting almost exclusively with people who share their ideas and values. This plays no small part in the isolation of the far left and its views. The identitarian echo chamber actually seems to be a lot bigger and substantially more influential than the antiracist echo chamber, reaching more people every day. It’s obvious we have to find new ways to organize, and to do so we HAVE TO get off of the social media platforms and go into communities, or we risk radical antifascism being permanently marginalized. That means organizing and acting in the cities, neighbourhoods, and communities where the far right are intent upon recruiting.

An Exemplary Antiracist Gathering

On a much more positive note, we must note the excellent work done by our CO25 comrades. The popular gathering, even if it only brought out a small crowd, was a clear organizational success. Everyone appreciated the meal collectively prepared by members of the IWW, the Collectif de minuit, and Food Against Fascism, the speeches were clear and on topic, security was well organized, and the piñata was a nice way to end it. Overall, better communication vastly improved coordination between the cities. But it’s still clear that things are far from ideal . . . it was fine for a pleasant picnic to denounce racism, but it wasn’t enough when the pepper spray came! So, while the popular gathering was a success, the same can’t be said for the subsequent events.

The Most Unequal Faceoff to Date . . . A Brief Account of the Events

The parameters established by the “popular” gathering were clear; people planning to physically block the far-right march were to wait until after noon to move into position.

Following improvised leadership, a small group of about 200 demonstrators easily skirted a handful of disorganized cops to take to the street and move in the direction of René-Lévesque. The SPVQ riot squad got their shit together just enough to throw up a haphazard cordon at the intersection of René-Lévesque and Honoré-Mercier. Showing little taste for the fight (perhaps a prudent assessment of the objective conditions . . .), the antifascist forces didn’t try to break through the police line, instead choosing to occupy the intersection for a long as possible. At this point, the La Meute and Storm Alliance march was 150 meters away, in front of the Centre des congrès.

It wasn’t long before the cops received the order to put on their gas masks, a sure sign that chemical irritants would soon be coming into play. After about ten minutes the riot squad moved against the antiracists, more and more violently pushing them in the direction of the Fontaine de Tourny, generously dousing the front row in pepper spray, and they quite literally did this to clear the way so the racists could march on the Assemblée nationale as planned. The cops’ commitment to defending the racists’ right to demonstrate was almost touching.

Comrades resisted courageously for as long as they could, but eventually they were pushed back to the fountain. Metal barricades were dragged into the street to block the cops and snowballs rained down on the cops and the identitarians. However, by this point the resistance was pointless; most of the counterdemonstrators were dispersing, as rumours of an imminent kettle created confusion in our ranks. We withdrew to the Plains of Abraham, where there was an impromptu caucus, after which a hard core took off in the opposite direction, hoping to skirt the police and confront La Meute and Storm Alliance further on. A commendable effort, but unfortunately unsuccessful. At about the same time, the police arrested twenty-three comrades.

In the end, the far-right march was able to return to its starting point unopposed, yet still under a heavy police escort.

The police later reported an additional twenty-one “preventive” arrests shortly after noon in the area of the demonstration. The arrestees in these cases were charged with conspiracy to illegally assemble and being disguised with the intention of committing a crime. The police themselves admit that no crimes were committed by any of these people. Minority Report much? There are also some comrades who face additional charges.

La Meute, Storm Alliance, Atalante: The Same Struggle!—and the Police Working for the Fascists!

From our point of view, what was historic about the November 25 mobilization was the open unabashed coming together of almost all of Québec’s far-right forces. Until now, concerns about how they are perceived have caused La Meute, and to a lesser degree Storm Alliance, to keep openly fascist and white supremacist groups like Atalante and the la Fédération des Québécois de souche at arm’s length. This time they did not hesitate to cheerfully invite them to join their little party in the province’s capital. And in the aftermath of the demonstration Atalante Québec’s Facebook page included comments replete with praise from dozens of members of La Meute, Storm Alliance, the Soldiers of Odin, etc.[2] Which says it all.

Let’s be perfectly clear: Atalante members are white supremacists and unequivocal neo-fascists. There’s no room for doubt. The group was founded in 2016 by boneheads from the “Quebec Stompers” scene, part of the milieu surrounding Légitime Violence, a band with edifying lyrics such as: “Ces petits gauchistes efféminés qui se permettent de nous critiquer n’oseront jamais nous affronter. On va tous les poignarder” [The little leftist sissies who dare to criticize us would never risk confronting us. We will knife them one and all]. And perhaps even more to the point: “Déroulons les barbelés, préparons le Zyklon B!” [Roll out the barbed wire, Get the Zyklon B!], referring to the gas used in the Nazi concentration camps. Atalante has close ties to the fascist “Rock Against Communism” music scene, with the Italian neo-fascist group CasaPound, and here in Québec with the Fédération des Québécois de souche and the traditionalist Catholic Society of St-Pius X.

We also noted the presence of the Three Percenters (III%), a pseudo-militia whose members arrived at the demonstration decked out with reinforced security gloves and carrying telescopic batons, what appeared to be pepper spray, and other concealed weapons. This group, which has only recently established itself in Québec, includes conspiracy theorists and survivalists bound together by anti-Muslim and “anti-globalist” paranoia. The organization is primarily based in the U.S., but it has some chapters in English Canada as well. A few days after announcing themselves on November 25 in Quebec City, a number of “threepers” were part of the hodgepodge of dickheads who announced a pro-gun rally at the Polytechnique at the Université de Montréal, on December 2, 2017, four days before the annual commemoration of the 1989 shooting of fourteen women there by the anti-feminist Marc Lépine.

We are within our rights to ask why the Threepers weren’t arrested in Quebec City (or, at a minimum, why their weapons weren’t confiscated), while the police arrested twenty-one antifascists purely preventatively, pointing out in the media that weapons were found in the possession of some arrested militants. . . . And why were the Atalante and Soldiers of Odin boneheads permitted a lengthy gathering on the esplanade ramparts, from where they could fly their colours without the slightest interference from the police . . . while a few meters away the riot squad was mercilessly assaulting the antifascists.

The way the police were deployed in the contested space goes a long way toward suggesting complicity and a comfortable symbiosis with our adversaries. The police were in front of the far-right march with their backs to the identitarian protestors, focusing their attention on the antiracist militants. The SPVQ played a similar role on August 20, providing La Meute organizers with privileged information about the Montréal militants, extracted in a questionable way from a bus driver, thereby helping them to go ahead with their demonstration. But, frankly, this time not the slightest effort was put into hiding the complicity!

No big surprise that the identitarians applauded the police at the end of their demonstration . . .

Media Complicity

As expected, media coverage once again left a lot to be desired, typically portraying the antifascists as shit disturbers, when in reality we were on the receiving end of all of the violence! Most of the media repeated the SPVQ press statements without asking a single question, focusing primarily on the seizure of arms and throwing around the word “conspiracy.” We noticed a substantial difference between the coverage in the anglophone press and that in the francophone press. Significantly, the former doesn’t shy away from referring to La Meute and Storm Alliance as far-right, while the francophone press defaults to euphemisms and beating around the bush . . . when they don’t completely confuse the various groups and their respective positions (one TVA journalist went as far as to claim that Atalante were the antifa who had come to demonstrate against La Meute!). Xavier Camus has produced an excellent piece on the bizarre media coverage of the November 25 events.

Only the CBC thought it worth mentioning that the police had done the far right’s dirty work. To the best of our knowledge, in his piece appropriately entitled À bas le fascisme!, Houssein Ben-Ameur was the only columnist to set the record straight without feeling he had to tar the racists and the antiracists with the same brush.

Once again, it is the independent media that provided a perspective closer to what the antiracist and antifascist militants there that day actually experienced. The MADOC video is a great example.

A Negative Balance Sheet

In the final analysis, it’s hard to see this as a success for antifascists and antiracists. Obviously a modest mobilization was better than no mobilization at all, and we were frustrated by all of the adversity we faced trying to clearly express our opposition to these racist groups gathering in Quebec City. Even if November 25 wasn’t a victory for us, it would have been worse still had there been no opposition. It is also a fact that without the help of the police, even our modest mobilization would clearly have disrupted our adversaries’ plans in no small way. But that just isn’t good enough. To halt the fascist advance, we need to pick up our game, both at the level of mobilization and in terms of information and education. Furthermore, we need to find new ways to intervene, new approaches to mobilizing that allow us to break out of the ranks of the established left-wing scene and begin to meet and discuss with new comrades.

The best thing to come out of this mobilization was the improved ties between antiracist and antifascist militants in Montréal and Quebec City, as well as elsewhere in the province. Obviously we have our work cut out for us if we are to use this beginning to build ever stronger and more effective networks.

Some general observations:

  • Police complicity with the far right isn’t a problem that’s likely to go away. The fact that the new La Meute head of security is a former career police officer (from the Quebec City region) shouldn’t come as a great shock. It is getting more difficult to ignore the fact that the identitarian groups most certainly include members of the police force, and even possibly of the justice system. We need to look into this.
  • While the convergence of far-right forces on November 25 might seem disturbing, there are ways in which it helps us. The façade is crumbling, and claims made by La Meute leaders no longer seem credible. Their ties to racists are getting harder to hide. We need to draw attention to these links and ties.
  • We need to better prepare for tactical deployment. Some decisions that were made in the heat of the moment in Quebec City are clearly open to debate. For example, before announcing an imminent kettle, you need to be absolutely certain you’re right. That kind of warning has an immediate demobilizing effect, and it’s obviously a big problem if our demonstration scatters because of a faulty assessment. In the same vein, we need better communication, and we need experienced militants to begin sharing their skills with newer arrivals. There are, of course, security concerns with all of this that require some serious thought.

 

[1] There was also the fig leaf of support for “Seb,” a Québécois  man whose wife (a “potentially legitimate immigrant”) is having trouble immigrating to Canada.

[2] It’s worth noting that Dave Tregget, the leader of Storm Alliance, was himself the president of the Soldiers of Odin about a year ago and did not hide the fact that he was on good terms with Stompers and Atalante. Tregget has spent the recent months denying that he is a racist at every opportunity, but how can you doubt his racism when he and his buddies jump into bed with Atalante at the first opportunity? Tregget lies and manipulates, and it’s time the media recognized that.

Anti-racist, anti-police

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Nov 112017
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

On November 7th, early in the morning, we broke the store window of PSP Corp, a manufacturer and distributor of police and security equipment that supplies police forces in the Montreal area. We then sprayed blue paint all over their merchandise with the help of a fire extinguisher. This action was at once anti-racist, against the police, and against the private security companies that are complicit in police infrastructure in our neighborhoods. The police and their supporters are on the front lines of the violent maintenance of the white supremacist social order and the colonial authority of the state and of capitalism. Following the rise of the far right in Quebec, the police has defended racists and allowed them to spread their hate. The far right supports and encourages the maintenance and expansion of the police state and the surveillance measures that systematically target racialized and working-class people. Smashing PSP Corp.’s window and destroying their merchandise is a way of fighting back against surveillance and police infrastructure in our neighborhoods.

This action was carried out in the lead-up to the large demonstration against racism and hate of November 12th. Racism exists in Quebec. Security and surveillance technologies and the industries that grow around them belong to a state and a society built on exploitation, white supremacy, and patriarchy, and all of it on stolen land.

Solidarity with the Anti-Fascist Activists Arrested in Québec City!

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Sep 182017
 

From Montreal-Antifasciste

We would like to extend our unconditional solidarity to individuals in Quebec City who were recently arrested, in relation to allegations surrounding the antifascist mobilization on August 20th. We do not know any details beyond what we have seen in the media, but it is clear to us that these arrests are intended by the police and Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume to intimidate antifascists and stifle our resistance to the far right. To those arrested, and all others who may be targeted, we say: stand strong and let us know what we can do to help.

And more generally, for everyone else reading this: The threat posed by the far right is multilayered, and so is our antifascist response. As such, at times antifascist activists will be targeted for criminalization and repression. If you or someone you know has been arrested or is facing charges due to your opposition to the far right, we encourage you to contact us at alerta-mtl@antifa.zone. We can recommend lawyers, and will do whatever else we can to help.

Very important: do not email us any information that could be used to incriminate you in any way. We are not lawyers and your email to us is not legally protected from police spies. Contact us and let us know you need help, and we will get back in touch with you, but don’t provide details beyond what you are being charged with. (I.e. don’t say “I did it!”)

Justice and Jean-Pierre Lizotte, the Poet of Bordeaux Prison

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Sep 062017
 

On September 5, 1999, eighteen years ago, Jean-Pierre Lizotte died as a result of injuries sustained from the blows of a Montreal police officer. I’m re-sharing today an article that I wrote in 2008 (published, in a slightly different form, in the Montreal Gazette) about the “Poet of Bordeaux Prison”. RIP Jean-Pierre Lizotte!

The Gazette’s opinion pages recently provided space to the lawyer for Montreal police officer Giovanni Stante who was charged in the death of Jean-PierreLizotte in 1999. The lawyer takes offense to a Gazette report, subsequent to the police killing of Freddy Villaneuva in Montreal-Nord in August this year. He feels that the report gives the “false impression that Lizotte was a victim of police brutality.”

Stante’s lawyer reiterates that Officer Stante was acquitted by a jury in 2002, and cleared by the Police Ethics Tribunal for inappropriate use of force just this past August 2008. Those are cold, hard facts.

However, there is one eyewitness to the events on the early morning of September 5, 1999 outside the Shed Café on St-Laurent Boulevard who will never get to tell his side, and that’s Jean-Pierre Lizotte himself. Lizotte died subsequent to the substantial injuries he suffered.

Yet, while vigilantly defending Officer Stante almost a decade after the incident in question, Stante’s lawyer goes on to cite Jean-Pierre Lizotte’s extensive criminal record. Dead men tell no tales, as the saying goes.

Fortunately, in the case of Jean-Pierre Lizotte, despite two decades in-and-out of prison, this particular dead man had a lot to say, and he said it, poignantly and insightfully. He deserves his voice too, in these pages, as much as Officer Stante has his voice through his lawyer’s skillful advocacy.

Thanks to a remarkable radio program called Souverains anonymes, which encouraged the creative side of prisoners at Bordeaux, we still have a record of many of Jean-Pierre Lizotte’s words.

After learning of his death, the producers of Souverains Anonymes recalled something Lizotte wrote to Abla Farhoud — a Quebec playwright, writer and actress, originally from Lebanon — who had participated in one show at the Bordeaux prison. Lizotte was responding to the words of the main character of Farhoud’s novel, Le bonheur a la queue glissante, who observed, “My country is that place where my children are happy”.

As an immigrant rights activist, deeply immersed in migrant justice struggles, and indelibly touched by my mother’s own immigrant experience, Lizotte’s response to Farhoud is moving, as he seeks common ground while reflecting on his own life; it’s worth citing in full:

“Hello Abla, my name is JP Lizotte. For the 21 years that I’ve been returning inside, prison has become my country. When I leave it, I become an immigrant! I experience all that an immigrant might experience when they miss their country of origin. When I’m inside, I want to leave. And when I’m outside, I miss the inside. Sometimes I say to myself, “If I had a grandmother or a grandfather, things would have been different for me.” But how can you have a grandmother when you’ve hardly had either a mother or father. The memories that I have make me cry, so I won’t tell them to you. But, a grandmother, like the one in your novel, is not given to everyone. So, I say to everyone who has a grandmother or grandfather, take advantage of it. Thanks.”

There are clear underlying and understandable reasons why Lizotte was in-and-out of prison for more than two decades, beyond the list of criminal offenses that Officer Stante’s lawyer provides, without any context.

His fellow prisoners dubbed Lizotte the “Poet of Bordeaux”, and he wrote prolifically. His poems were in a rhyming and often humorous style that address deeply personal themes: his difficult childhood, his lack of a caring mother, his father’s alcoholism, depression, his HIV-positive status, his drug problems, along with subjects like music, prison and revolt. He even wrote an unpublished memoir about his itinerant life called, Voler par amour, pleurer en silence.

Jean-Pierre Lizotte came from a harsh-lived reality, right from his childhood, as he shared in his poems and writings with simple honesty.

On the late night of September 5, 1999, on a trendy and expensive part of St-Laurent Boulevard, Jean-Pierre Lizotte’s reality came up against the contrasting reality of restaurant patrons, bouncers, and police officers. Lizotte was allegedly causing some sort of disturbance, and he had to be restrained in a full-nelson hold and punched at least two times by Officer Stante’s own testimony (some witnesses claim that Lizotte was punched “repeatedly” and excessively). According to eyewitnesses, there was a pool of blood left at the scene. One eyewitness refers to Lizotte being thrown into a police van “like a sack of potatoes”.

Officer Stante was duly acquitted by a jury in 2002; so were the officers in the infamous Rodney King beating, or more recently the New York City officers who shot and killed the unarmed Sean Bell on the day of his wedding. Police officers are routinely acquitted – if ever charged — within a criminal justice system that appropriately demands proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” before conviction.

Officer Stante might stand acquitted, but it’s still completely valid, and necessary, to question the actions of the Montreal police, despite the police procedures that apparently allow for the punching of an unarmed man held by another officer for the purposes of restraining a suspect. One simple fact that readers should consider: the police did not reveal Jean-Pierre Lizotte’s death in 1999 to the public until 53 days later.

But, what if there was a video of what happened outside the Shed Café in 1999 instead of the imperfect and contradictory memories of eyewitnesses at 2:30 in the morning? What if Jean-Pierre Lizotte was present in the courtroom, in a wheelchair and paralyzed, in front of the jury’s own eyes?

At Stante’s trial, and again in your pages, Officer Stante’s lawyer puts a dead man who can’t defend himself on trial. Lizotte transparently acknowledged who he was. What’s cheap is to still deny Jean-Pierre Lizotte – the homeless “criminal” — his full humanity and dignity, because he possessed it in such abundance.

– Jaggi Singh (September 2008), member of Justice for Victims of Police Killings and Solidarity Across Borders (Cité sans frontières / Solidarity City / Ciudad Solidaria (Montréal))

Statement from Freddy Stoneypoint

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Aug 172017
 

STATEMENT FROM FREDDY STONEYPOINT as RELEASED TO HIS LAWYERS ME RIAHI AND ME DESVIGNES.

“As a representative of Bawating water protectors, my only wish is to activate my ceremonial being in defense of land and waters through peaceful means. I am not an activist, I am an Anishinaabe man working to protect the land for future generations. I thank all of my supporters working towards same future for all on Turtle Island. Tomorrow at 10h30 AM, I will receive a decision on my bail hearing.”

Urgent: Legal fund and solidarity demonstrations for Freddy Stoneypoint, Indigenous Land Defender

 Comments Off on Urgent: Legal fund and solidarity demonstrations for Freddy Stoneypoint, Indigenous Land Defender
Aug 162017
 

Legal defense funds are urgently needed for Freddy Stoneypoint, an Anishinaabe man who was arrested Monday night in a police raid of the anti-fracking blockade on Mi’gmaq territory in so-called “Québec”.

People had erected barricades and blockaded the site for over a week before a Sûreté Québec (SQ) tactical unit assaulted the camp. Protectors of the land and water are always confronted by the machinery of the police, in service of the oil companies. Solidarity and support for the defenders will be necessary for the struggle to be able to stop the destruction of territories.

Freddy currently faces charges of breaking and entering, mischief over $5000, and theft over $5000, and is being detained at least until a Thursday hearing on his release. He is being held at the New Carlisle provincial prison.

Freddy has consistently demonstrated an inspiring fortitude, determination, and strength of conviction in standing for Indigenous sovereignty and defending the land, air and water on which all people, animal species, and future generations, depend.

It’s now time for all of us who see ourselves in this struggle to help defend Freddy against the onslaught of the colonial “Canadian” justice system. We refuse any separation between “good” and “bad” water and land protectors. Rather, the fault line is between those who are safeguarding the land, and the partisans of the ravages of the extractivist economy.

Join us Thursday, August 17, at 1:00pm in front of the Palais de “Justice” of Percé for a demonstration in support of Freddy Stoneypoint in his legitimate struggle. Facebook here.

If you’re in Montreal, join a solidarity demonstration meeting on the north side of Parc des Faubourgs (close to metro Papineau) at 1 pm! Facebook here.

Funds are urgently needed to pay Freddy’s legal fees and his legal team’s travel costs. Please contribute according to your means. Youcaring link here.