Press release

Free Our Friends! Community Update on G20 Detainees

Mick — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:23:15 -0700

by Direct Support Committees of G20 detainees

While G20 leaders met behind a steel cage and a 1-billion dollar Fortress Toronto operation, we witnessed an unprecedented coordinated police operation in the city of Toronto. Police brutality against protest participants, journalists, legal observers, medics, and random passersby came in the form of indiscriminate arrests, beatings, pepper spray, rubber bullets, police horse charges, illegal searches and seizures, and extended arbitrary detentions. While in custody, people were forced into steel cage cells with up to 40 people per cell; made to sleep on concrete floors with open bathrooms; denied food, water, toilet paper, and sanitary products; subjected to sexual harassment, threats, humiliation, and intimidation; and refused access to medical attention, phone calls, and legal counsel.

Toronto Community Mobilization Network Call for immediate support and solidarity

Linchpin — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 09:35:26 -0700

July 1, 2010

From June 25-27, elites from the world’s most powerful economies met in Huntsville and Toronto to draft policies to further exploit the environment and people, bolstering the systems that sustain colonialism, wars and displacement.

With global attention on Toronto, tens of thousands of people mobilized in a historic week-long convergence in opposition to these policies. Daily demonstrations highlighted struggles for Indigenous sovereignty; environmental justice; migrant justice; an end to war and occupation; community control over resources; gender justice; and queer and disAbility rights.

Also unprecedented was the over $1.2 billion spent on security, the most in G20 summit history, which paid for a dizzying array of weaponry and nearly 20,000 police—plus a security fence that turned Toronto into a fortress to host a select few and a police state to terrorize the rest of us.

The fight back is on! Solidarity with the Toronto 900 rallies organized across the country

Alex_Hamilton — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:23:33 -0700

Everyone out against police brutality and in solidarity with the Toronto 900! A protest outside police headquarters in every city!

Saturday July 17, 2010 Protest in Quebec City, Montreal and in many Canadian cities

The events of the past week in Toronto have been unprecedented in Canadian history. Over 900 people were arrested, the biggest mass arrests ever in Canada, for daring to protest against the destructive policies of the G20.

Protesters and local residents were subjected to violent baton attacks, snatch squads, tear gas and rubber bullets. Sleeping people have been pulled from their homes at gunpoint in the middle of the night. Many have been beaten. People who have been arrested have been strip-searched and held in cages, facing long delays in obtaining legal support. We have heard numerous accounts of sexual abuse by police from women who were arrested. Journalists have been punched, arrested and had their equipment broken.

Free the Toronto 500!

Linchpin — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 15:13:30 -0700

Breaking news: CP24 now reports the total number of G20 arrests is 604. 253 today alone according to police.

Appeal for broad political support for the G20 arrestees
By The Movement Defence Committee

June 27, 2010, 3:00pm

The MDC’s Summit Legal Support Project is appealing to the movements it supports to mobilize a show of political strength and solidarity for the nearly 500 people arrested in the last four days. The Toronto Police and the ISU appear to have lost control of their ‘prisoner processing center’, denying arrestees meaningful and timely access to counsel while beating and arresting those peacefully protesting their detention outside.

Despite assurances to the contrary, only a handful of people have been released, including those held for many hours without charge. Arrestees are given incorrect information about the bail process they will be subjected to, and friends and family members gather hours early at the courthouse, located far from the city center and inaccessible via transit. Our lawyers call in and are told that there is no one available to make decisions or wait for hours at the detention centre, only to be denied access to their clients. Almost 500 people are in custody and we know from experience that the vast majority of those charges will disappear and yet the cell doors remain shut.

We need to step it up and build a political response. We need many more voices – especially prominent ones – to say that the abuse and incompetence at 629 Eastern Avenue must stop. We must demand that all levels of government take control of the police forces under their command. We need to ensure that courts and crown attorneys act to enforce constitutional rights rather than collude in their violation.

Free the Toronto 500!

The Movement Defence Committee

2010 Soccer World Cup: All in the Name of the Beautiful Gain

Mick — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:19:22 -0700

All in the Name of the Beautiful Gain
A ZACF statement on the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa

The 2010 Soccer World Cup must be exposed for the utter sham that it is. The ZACF strongly condemns the audacity and hypocrisy of the government in presenting the occasion as a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity for the economic and social upliftment of those living in South Africa (and the rest of the continent). What is glaringly clear is that the “opportunity” has and continues to be that of a feeding-frenzy for global and domestic capital and the South African ruling elite. In fact, if anything, the event is more likely to have devastating consequences for South Africa’s poor and working class – a process that is already underway.

Anarchists scapegoats for RBC arson

Alex_Hamilton — Fri, 21 May 2010 09:55:04 -0700

May 21, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Anarchists scapegoats for RBC arson

Despite widespread claims by the media, there is no indication that the recent "firebombing" of an RBC bank branch in Ottawa was carried
out by "anarchists".

Nowhere in the statement or video that was published online was it claimed that those responsible were anarchists.

For the media to claim that this is the work of anarchists without any evidence is the worst sort of red-baiting and gets a F grade in basic
journalism.

We have no idea what the politics of those who did this are. We also can’t rule out the possibility that this act was carried out by
agent-provocateurs.

Common Cause organizes "Black Flame" Ontario book tour

Alex_Hamilton — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:21:22 -0800

South African writer and activist Michael Schmidt, co-author of “Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism” will be in several Ontario cities between March 15 and March 21 to promote and discuss this important new book on the global history of anarchist movements and ideas. The tour, organized by Common Cause with support from AK Press and several local sponsors, is scheduled to pass through the following cities listed below.

To promote the tour Common Cause has also produced a short video which can be seen here and set up a Facebook page. Copies of "Black Flame" will be available for purchase at each tour stop.

comment guidlines

Mick — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:38:39 -0800

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¡Llamado para Solidaridad y Fondos para l@s obrer@s de Haití!

Linchpin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:17:20 -0800

Para contribuir directamente con tarjeta de crédito:
Contribuir

14/01/09- Una catástrofe ha caído encima de Haití cuya dimensión solo vemos la superficie en este momento. El pueblo haitiano estará luchando para rehacer sus vidas y sus hogares posiblemente durante decadas en vista del colapso sin precedentes, tanto físico como social. Pero a pesar de la incertidumbre de los terremotos, esta desastre no es natural, una monstruosidad de nuestros tiempos. El alcance de los daños del terremoto es parte de las consequencias de la explotación desenfrenada que en cada paso pone la ganancia por encima de la salud, la seguridad y el bienestar del pueblo haitiano.

Appel à la solidarité et à l’envoi de fonds pour les travailleurs d’Haïti!

Linchpin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:00:22 -0800

Appel à la solidarité

EDIT: Suivez ce lien pour contribuer

et à l’envoi de fonds pour les travailleurs d’Haïti !

Une catastrophe naturelle vient de s’abattre sur Haïti, dont nous n’entrevoyons encore que la surface. Les haitiens vont devoir lutter pour reconstruire leur vie et leurs maisons, et ce vraisemblablement pour des décennies considérant cet effondrement sans précédent, à la fois physique et social.

Pourtant, malgré les l’imprévisibilité des tremblements de terre, ce désastre est contre nature, une monstruosité de notre temps. L’ampleur des dégâts du tremblement de terre fait partie du coût de l’exploitation effrénée qui, à chaque moment, met le profit devant la santé, devant la sécurité et devant le bien être du peuple de Haïti.