2010-07-03
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 weeklong 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.
Nearly 1,000 people, protesters and bystanders alike, were detained—the largest mass arrests in Canadian history. They were held for long periods in makeshift cages in deplorable conditions, most without timely access to legal counsel.
Many had been simply caught up in massive police sweeps of public areas. There are also documented cases of harassment and abuse of journalists as well as widespread racial profiling.
Some are still in custody. Twenty face serious charges. These prisoners are long-time community organizers. They were targeted for their unapologetically vocal and defiant roles in resisting all forms of oppression and exploitation.
As the police and media try to divide us, the Toronto Community Mobilization Network makes no distinction between “good protesters” and “bad protesters.”
All deserve our solidarity.
Now we must continue to mobilize and build greater solidarity among our communities. An important part of this will be supporting our courageous allies still in detention. We refuse to be intimidated by police repression and, with your help, will continue to organize in our communities for the same reasons that brought us together in the first place, now exacerbated under the austerity measures passed during the G20 summit.
We need donations to support these efforts. You can support the detainees’ legal costs and help alleviate some of the other costs of navigating the court system, and help us keep organizing.
You can donate by cheque or PayPal (at g20.torontomobilize.org). Cheques can be made payable to the Toronto Community Mobilization Network and can be mailed to:
360A Bloor Street West, PO Box 68557
Toronto, ON M5S 1X0
Canada
Thank you for your help. Together we will create a just world that places people and the environment before the profits of corporations and the political elite.
In solidarity,
Toronto Community Mobilization Network