From Group de soutien
Last Wednesday, April 15th, my friend got arrested at UQAM. Security agents followed him in the hallways. They called the cops who made the arrest. He spent the night at the Operational Center. He was supposed to get released at the municipal court but the judge moved the inquiry to the next day. He spent that night at the Rivière-des-Prairies male prison in northern Montreal. The next day; Friday the 17th, we organized a picket in support at the municipal court and waited all day for his turn. We were about 30 people. After the inquiry, the judge denied bail before trial. Until then, he will serve time without trial at Rivière-des-Prairies. The judge’s main argument is that if he had freed our friend, it would damage public opinion and that the population would lose faith into the justice system. He also spoke of the importance to preserve the public’s trust into the management of that justice system; in concern to a «well-informed public», he said. He was talking about the people who read the newspapers and watch the news on television every night, basically, thus an hymn to the mass media.
Contrary to what the judge stated, our friend is paying the price alone for a movement already strongly repressed, meaning that his imprisonment is nothing but political.
Facing the political and judicial violence ongoing at UQAM in the context of the injunction against strike mandates, and the relentless profiling that students and their allies are being put through, we can only revolt. Our friend is clearly being used as an example in order to strike fear and shut down the voices of dissent. We do not believe in the justice system but it is easy to feel lonely and powerless against such hegemonic power. We acknowledge the fact that we are in a “war” were two sides with opposite and irreconcilable interests are fighting each other, thus meaning that we have to organize to protect ourselves more so that we can stay dangerous while confronting the state and his minions. This is why masking ourselves is appropriate. Even if your friends and the security guards recognize you, it is still harder to do so with the surveillance camera that will be used to incriminate you.
Our friend is not a martyr, he is not a hero nor a leader; what happened to him could’ve happened to anyone of us.
That is why we are calling for active solidarity without dissociation or condemning of all the people criminalized by the State, at all time and in the context of the actual strike movement, may it be for the reason of disruptive actions, protests or facing injunctions. This solidarity expresses itself with a collective responsibility towards the well being of each and every one of us. Denouncing criminalization with protests or pickets, opposing targeted arrests and snitching, bringing legal, financial and moral support (letters, fundraisers, etc) and demanding the removal of charges, copwatching, taking care of the wounded, staying close together. Those are the basis of a resistance culture that we must nurture and develop. The legitimization of tendencies that advocate the less possible gain, are less dangerous and maintain a status quo that divide the movement and isolate radical thinking. We believe on the contrary that it is by the continuity of the movement, it’s expansion and intensification that we can aspire to a more just society. Police repression and it’s consequences on short, middle or long term is an attack with no common measure against this ongoing movement.
We won’t back down.
You can write support letters to our friend and leave them at L’Insoumise (the Montreal anarchist bookstore), at Café Aquin (in UQAM-Hubert Aquin Pavillion or at La Déferle (« anarchist social space » in Montreal).
You can also contribute to the fundraiser, write to us for more infos:
groupedesoutien@riseup.net
There will be a picket in front of the municipal court on April 29 at 9:30
AM.
All the prisoners are political prisoners!
Down to all the prisons!