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By Red Black

On Wednesday June 23rd at about 1:00pm I was walking south on Spadina Avenue. As I crossed Bulwer Street on the east side of Spadina, a woman approached me and asked me if I knew where Huron Street was. I turned around and pointed in that general direction as I was giving her instructions, when suddenly she referred to me by name. Confused as to why she would know my name, I turned towards her as she and two other plainclothes police officers tackled me to the ground - scraping my arms, my head, and my face in the process. One of the male officers then told me I was under arrest as he pulled my arms behind my back to cuff me while another kept his knee on my neck, grinding my face against the pavement. I was not read my rights until I was placed in an unmarked SUV. The police officer in the back seat with me explained that I was under arrest for nine counts of mischief and masking with intent and that I would be taken to 52 Division for processing. When we arrived at the station I was taken by the same two officers into a small room where I was strip searched.

The two male officers then took me upstairs to an interrogation room. My demands to make a legal call were ignored. After being in the interrogation room for approximately an hour, one of the arresting officers came in to explain the charges and asked me to sign a piece of paper - to which I responded that I wouldn’t sign anything until I made my legal call. I was left in the interrogation room for another hour or so before the other arresting officer and one of the officers at 52 Division showed me the paperwork regarding the details of my arrest, and what I was being arrested for. The arresting officer asked me if there was anyone else that he wanted me to contact aside from legal. I asked him to contact a comrade to let him know I was in police custody. My demands to make my legal call were once again ignored. I had been in police custody now for approximately three hours without a legal call. I began to get restless, so I started banging on the interrogation room door and yelling that I would continue until I received my legal call. My troublemaking in the police office was met with calls to “shut the fuck up”. I responded that I would not shut the fuck up until I received my legal call and this method proved to be effective. About 15 minutes later I was asked which lawyer they wanted me to call. I simply gave them the telephone number for the Movement Defence Committee of the TCMN. They asked who they were calling and I stated that I didn’t need to tell them anything. They explained that they wanted to know for documentation purposes and after being hassled for several minutes I gave in and told them it was the MDC. That was a rookie mistake. Never tell the pigs anything because you don’t have to and it can incriminate you. The arresting officer made the call to the MDC and a lawyer called back later on. When I finally spoke with a lawyer it was 5:30pm. It was nice to talk to someone friendly in such a pig-laden environment.

After speaking to the lawyer, the arresting officer brought me back into the interrogation room. He then asked me if there was anything else I wanted to tell them. I told him to fuck off.

He asked again, saying that if I didn’t cooperate I would be detained until the next Monday morning because I was a troublemaker. I told him again to fuck off. The officer then told me that since I was not cooperating, he would not make the call to my comrade. I was pissed, but what do you expect from the pigs?

About an hour later, two officers came into the interrogation room that I had not seen before. These two were covert pigs (undercovers). They made a pitch to me. They explained that they fully supported peaceful protests but that they were concerned about some of the groups who would be attending the protests, particularly the SOAR and the FFFC. I told them that they clearly didn’t understand who I was, because I would not be cooperating with them in any way. They then told me that they knew the Crown Attorney and that they would ensure I spent all weekend in the Don jail if I did not cooperate.

These covert pigs then tried to engage me in some kind of debate to which I explained I had no interest in talking politics with the police and that I would not cooperate. This badgering went on for about half an hour before they began to offer me both money, and an easy way out of my charges if I gave them information about the protests. I responded to their offer with “I’m a fucking anarchist, and I’m not saying shit to you”. They then began to tell me that I would be spending the rest of the week in the Don jail where I would be beaten and raped frequently. These are the kind of mind-fucking Gestapo pig tactics everyone needs to be aware of. I was scared, but I maintained and told them to fuck off.

At about 9pm, I was taken downstairs to be photographed and fingerprinted, then brought to a cell to wait until my bail hearing in the morning. In the cell there was a toilet and a stainless steel bed to sleep on. I was in shorts and a sleeveless shirt and the AC was blasting. I assume they blast the AC for two reasons: To torture the inmates with the cold and to keep the body temperature of overweight cops at an acceptable level.

It is hard enough trying to fall asleep on a stainless steel bed with no pillows or blankets, but it is much harder when a cop comes to your cell, bangs on the bars with his baton, and tells you again that you’re going to be beaten and raped repeatedly in the Don jail for the rest of the week. I told him that I’d be out tomorrow morning. He just smiled and said “you’ve got no chance”.

I was woken up at about 6:30am the next day, cuffed to the other inmates, and brought to the Queen Street courthouse in a court services van. We arrived at the court house and were then brought into the pre-trial holding cell. There were about fifteen people in the room where there was one toilet, a water fountain, and very little room to sit down. I had not eaten the day of my arrest, and was feeling particularly shitty from the stainless steel bed and lack of sleep. The pigs provided us with an offering of stale bun with processed cheese and a small glass of salty orange drink. I couldn’t even stomach the whole cheese bun. I spoke to my lawyer at about 10:30am. She assured me that there would be no problem getting me out on $500, no deposit and under my own recognizance (meaning I would be the only person liable). I was brought into the bail hearing at about 11:15am. The hearing was relatively quick. True to my lawyer’s word, I was given bail with conditions.

I wish those lying fat pigs could have been there to see it.

Over the course of the G20 weekend, over 1000 people were arrested and sent to an abandoned film studio that had been turned into a makeshift prison. The vast majority of those detained were completely peaceful protesters. Some of those arrested were not protesters at all, but merely pedestrians detained and brutalized for being in the wrong place at the wrong time; not unsurprisingly, many of these people are now protesters.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky once wrote: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” So what lessons, then, did G20 detainees learn about the “degree of civilization” of Canadian society?

Throughout the time that I was detained I was told many statements that I find repulsive and completely inappropriate and what I view as threats. I was told I was going to be raped. I was told that I was going to be gang banged. I was told that they were going to make sure that I was never going to want to act as a journalist again by making sure that I would be repeatedly raped while I was in jail. While I was in the detention center, I saw numerous young women who were completely strip searched, who were strip-searched by male officers. And one young woman who was coming out, who was completely traumatized, said she had had a finger put up her.
- Amy Miller, Independent Journalist and Filmmaker

There were 40 people in one cage — it was brutal, and it was cold.
-Matthew Beatty

We were given a two day old stale cheese and butter sandwich, and given a small cup of water every five hours. The police guards had an unlimited supply of apples, bottled water, roast beef sandwiches and chocolate covered strawberries that they were eating in front of our cells. Some cell mates where so desperate for food they’d eat the thrown away apple cores left on the cell floor.
-Anonymous

For the first time in my life, I had to beg for water. There was a water riot; you could hear all the cages screaming for water; all the people losing it. I had never been in a situation like that, and never had to for being a Canadian.
- Tommy Taylor

That detention centre was tantamount to torture.
-Cameron Fenton, Journalist

I will not forget what they have done to me and others.
- Guillaume Lemarron

By Heatscore

“Everybody is an idealist. Everybody has this idea that things should be better and that’s really a non-ideological thing. The fear is that those idealists will become radicals and start questioning the roots of the system, start questioning the power structure. People in power don’t like that. You have to turn these idealists into realists, because once they’re realists, they can accept the compromises that opportunists make - those being the politicians.

And how do you turn an idealist into a realist instead of a radical? Well, a baton blow to the head is one way. Getting wafts of tear gas is another. Yet another is making the radicals seem crazy and criminal. Give the distinct impression through the media that you will be jailed. You will be treated differently and it’s not worth the trouble. As long as idealists stay that way, or even better become realists or opportunists, that’s great.”
- Jaggi Singh

The riots are over. The security fence is long gone. Most of the pigs have gone home – and those that remain have taken off their armored exoskeletons and morphed back into human form.

And yet the scars, triumphs and setbacks of what has been dubbed ‘The Battle of Toronto’ remain with us, and will no doubt continue to cast an indelible impression on our movement during the important years ahead.

In the wider “Western” world, the Toronto G20 Summit will be forever tied to the era of widespread economic shock therapy that it has ushered in – and the violent social unrest that will inevitably accompany the sacrifice of the European welfare state to the alter of “fiscal sustainability.”

For activists in Canada, however, the immediate legacies of the Summit are a greatly expanded police state apparatus, widespread public exposure to police brutality and the cumulative effect of the over one thousand detentions that took place during the G20 weekend – including the targeted arrests of some of the country’s most committed and effective organizers.

Make no mistake… those singled out as the alleged “ringleaders” of the G20 protests have been so targeted because of their articulate, persistent and stirring calls for an end to the injustices of capitalism and colonialism, and because of the respect and admiration they inspire in all of us who struggle for a more just and equitable world.

The trumped up charges laid against these individuals are a vicious, fundamentally shameless attempt by the Canadian state to silence dissent. As Montreal-based anarchist Jaggi Singh so succinctly put it, “conspiracy charges are simply the criminalization of organizing.”

To make matters worse, Crown Attorney Vincent Paris has stated that the so-called “evidence” for many of these charges was collected by two undercover agents operating in Guelph, Kitchener, Waterloo and Toronto. These two backstabbing pieces of shit – apparently part of an ongoing joint intelligence operation directed by the RCMP – allegedly infiltrated the Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance (SOAR), which Paris refers to as a “criminal extremist group”, by building up and exploiting the friendship and trust of local activists.

The fact that I have met these individuals and discussed politics with their alter-egos makes me sick to my stomach. But this operation does suggest, if nothing else, that the country’s elite are acutely aware of the continued threat posed to their dominance by anarchist ideas.

And well they should be.

For as capitalism continues its death spiral, and more and more people worldwide are faced with the inescapable realities of advanced resource depletion and systemic environmental collapse, the prospect of a historical reckoning looms large.

The Canadian government’s strategy in the face of this prospect has been to scapegoat those who actively organize to bring about social transformation, and to attempt to turn public opinion against radical anti-capitalists of all stripes – and anarchists in general.

This new McCarthyism hinges on a divide-and-conquer strategy that employs the “violent” spectacle of the black bloc to stigmatize any and all confrontation with the forces of capitalism. While the effect on the population at large has not been particularly surprising, it has been truly shocking to see how effective the tactic has been on fellow protesters and so-called “progressive” commentators - who are seemingly tripping over one another in their rush to distance themselves from the property destruction that occurred during the “Get off the Fence” march.

The major differences between Conservative fundamentalist Stockwell Day’s tirade against “anarchist thugs” and subsequent statements from Judy Rebick calling for the swift repression of black bloc participants are matters of semantics - not of substance; CUPE-Ontario’s statement condemning the “abandonment of the rule of law” posed by the burning of “publicly-owned police vehicles” demonstrates that these union bureaucrats are more interested in the efficient investment of their members’ tax dollars in the infrastructure of working class repression than they are in fulfilling their historical responsibilities as proponents of class warfare.

Joining the enraged moderates in denouncing the black-clad militants has been the Alex Jones “Info-Warriors” crowd, armed with a dizzying array of Youtube videos purporting to prove – often through dubious photographic evidence – that the bloc was, in fact, a cleverly orchestrated government conspiracy. Often dovetailing with the arguments posed by pacifist liberals, these theories range from the suggestion that police officers consciously allowed the vandalism to occur to utterly ridiculous claims that the burning police cars were Hollywood props ignited by undercover agent provocateurs. While many of these armchair detectives disagree over the specific details of the nefarious plot, almost all of them agree that the property destruction served exclusively to justify the criminalization of those simply exercising their Charter rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression.

Faced with the angry scorn of their fellow protesters and frustrated by what they perceive as a climate of abject defeatism, many supporters of black bloc tactics adopt a patronizing and hostile posture towards their critics - thereby reinforcing the popular caricature of these militants as dangerous, arrogant thrill-seekers. While the dogmatic adherence to non-violence so prevalent among “progressives” can indeed be frustrating, it is important to keep in mind that not everyone reads Ward Churchill and Gilles Deleuze; rationalizations of property destruction premised on the systemic violence of capitalism mean nothing to someone who hasn’t already deeply internalized the connection between first world consumerism and third world suffering. To the majority of protesters the smashing of windows is a destructive ritual carried out for its own benefit – not a tactic to be employed towards the achievement of collective liberation.

This is not to suggest that anarchists should gear their tactical repertoire towards the appeasement of liberals. It is simply important to understand our role in the state’s divide and conquer strategy – and do our very best to thwart their efforts. It is not possible to bully someone – physically or intellectually - into showing solidarity.

Though we must continue to enthusiastically demonstrate our unwavering support with all those arrested in Toronto and actively resist efforts to scapegoat anarchists or divide protesters into “good” and “bad” camps, we must also be willing to show our good faith – and to demonstrate our solidarity with our more moderate allies in their daily struggles.

Above all else, if we want to be an effective movement, we must learn from our mistakes.

One of the biggest mistakes made in the lead up to the G20 was a failure by the organizers of the “Get off the Fence” action to provide an effective means for non-masked participants to take part. There were hundreds of rank-and-file unionists, militant socialists, migrant justice advocates and community organizers who joined the march. These people were defiant, and vocal in their desire to march on the fence. The fact that the actions of the black bloc inspired many residents of Toronto to come out to the streets (and to further vandalize and torch a second set of police cruisers) clearly shows that many people share our hatred of authority.

Sadly, unlike the “Heart Attack” action that occurred during the protests against the Vancouver Olympics, there was limited co-ordination between organizers and their potential allies; many of those who joined the initial action appear to have learned about the idea to march on the fence from a facebook group. While there are obvious security concerns associated with openly discussing militant actions, it is vital that potential allies know that we respect them and we value their contributions to the struggle. Security culture is important, but its harsh language can be very intimidating to those activists who are still learning about the repressive nature of the state, or for those who don’t identify with the anarchist milieu. In this case, the strategy ultimately wasn’t very effective – since the SOAR was infiltrated from its very inception.

Black bloc participants are respected on the streets because of their acute understanding of police tactics, their awareness of state surveillance infrastructure and their willingness to fight back. These skills can be used to increase the militant potential of a march - such as the “Justice for our Communities” event on June 25th - and should be viewed by their fellow protesters as an enormous tactical benefit.

It is important that this aspect of the black bloc is not lost in a rush to romanticize small-scale property destruction – or what is amusingly termed by many of its advocates as “property modification”. The notion that smashing a glass window can somehow “break the spell” of the public has never held much sway with me. This idea implies that the public is under temporary hypnosis, and just needs to “snap out of it”, whereas anyone with even a basic understanding of psychology understands that people are products of their environments, and are therefore deeply conditioned by their social roles as passive consumers. “The masses” will not be woken up by the sound of broken glass. Those who seek to resist do so because of their own histories, knowledge and personal relationships to injustice. Marginalized and poor communities distrust state authority because they have consistently been brutalized by police officers, not because of a news report about black-clad anarchists smashing out the windows of a Starbucks.

“Property modification” should be seen for what it is – an exhilarating way of venting frustration against symbols of corporate dominance. Its tactical benefits are marginal; it’s essentially a watered-down exercise in “propaganda of the deed”. The idea that a well-publicized riot is going to turn Toronto into Athens ignores the social dimensions that have made that insurrection so inspiring. The riots that blazed through Greece in December of 2008 (and have flared up several times since) did not occur in the shadow of a G20 summit – and the billion dollar police state that comes with it; they were a spontaneous reaction to the killing of a 15 year old kid - and the product of a widespread culture of resistance.

Building that culture of resistance is what we need to be focused on.

FREE OUR FRIENDS: JUSTICE FOR OUR COMMUNITIES

During the G20 Summit, thousands of concerned individuals took to the streets to exercise their civil rights and voice their opposition to the meetings. We showed our power in numbers and in the strength of our convictions. The challenge we posed to the oppressive policies of the G20 caused their billion dollar bodyguards to wage war on all those who voiced their dissent. Thousands of us experienced extreme police violence and intimidation. Hundreds of us were arrested and detained under abysmal conditions. Many of us are still in custody. We will not let them convince us that some of our comrades are less deserving. We will not assist them in dividing our movement, in scapegoating our people, or in attacking our organizations and allies.

No one is free until we are all free.

The atrocities of this weekend were not isolated incidents but a reflection of the intimidation that members of our communities face every day. We stand in solidarity with ALL the G20 arrestees and any person taken off of their streets by oppressive and unjust forces. We will hold the police and the colonial Canadian governments responsible for stealing the freedom of all people who rightfully resist them.

The more they try to keep us down, the more we will rise up.

Please support our legal efforts

All money goes to supporting those facing legal proceedings as a result of the G20 protests in Toronto, with priority given to those in most need.

Toronto Community Mobilization Network is asking all organizations, collectives and individuals to to hold independent fundraising events to raise money for the legal defense fund. Transfer information is also in the “support us” section of our website.

Let us know by email what you’ve planned and what you’ve raised.

Email: events.g20solidarity@gmail.com

For legal information:
movementdefence.org or g20legaldefence@gmail.com

Ways to donate:

1) Transfer funds to:
OPIRG York
transit number 00646
institution number 842
account number 3542240
Use your online bank account or contact your bank directly to transfer funds. Please put “G20 legal defence” in the memo.

2) Write a cheque
Cheques (payable to ‘Toronto Community Mobilization Network’ OR OPIRG York, with ‘G20 legal defence’ on the subject line) can be mailed to:

Toronto Community Mobilization Network
360A Bloor Street W
PO Box 68557
Toronto, ON M5S 1X0

3) Donate by PayPal
Make sure to put ‘G20 legal defence’ in the “Add special instructions for the Merchant” section.

Paypal Link:

Strengthening our Resolve: An interview with Alex Hundert
by Dawn Paley
vancouver.mediacoop.ca/story/strengthening-our-resolve

In the wee hours of June 26th, Alex Hundert awoke to the sound of police breaking down his door with a battering ram. Members of the gang unit entered his home in Toronto with guns drawn, arrested him and his partner, and took them to the now infamous temporary jail set up in an old film studio.

By the time the mass arrests started on Saturday evening, Hundert had already been transferred to the Maplehurst jail in Milton, Ontario. Over the next days, over a thousand G20 arrestees were put behind bars, including 16 more organizers and activists from Southern Ontario and Quebec who continue to face a variety of serious and trumped-up charges.

All of this might seem like a far cry from the life of a self described former “ski bum” who grew up the oldest of two boys in a middle class Toronto home. But Hundert, who was released on bail July 19 and today faces various charges of conspiracy related to G-20 organizing, can trace a line from his early activism right through to today.

While studying at Wilfred Laurier University, Hundert’s early forays into organizing were typical of many university students. “I was thrust into situations where these big, very effective organizing efforts, like doing campus fundraisers for popular causes such as AIDS, were happening and we’d get hundreds of people involved. But then everyone one would go home and feel that they’d done their part and everything was okay,” he said. “I felt that no matter how much money we raised on a university campus, we were not really contributing anything to the solution.”

Doing support at the blockade in Grassy Narrows opened Hundert’s eyes to a far more holistic form of activism, and deepened his analysis of capitalism and colonialism. “In Grassy Narrows, I got to see first hand the extent to which many of the things we’re told about this country are flagrant lies, and the extent to which the exploitation of resources and labour is synonymous with the destruction of communities,” he said.

Judy Da Silva, Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishinabe (Grassy Narrows First Nations), who has worked closely with Alex since 2006, attributes the growing movement of non-natives in support of Indigenous land rights to the work of Alex and others in Southern Ontario. “Alex Hundert is a patient generous person who works tirelessly on environmental & social issues on behalf of mother earth and her inhabitants,” said Da Silva. “He has continued to supports us in our struggle to protect our boreal forest from logging and pollution and to raise awareness about our issues to non-natives.”

But instead of being out on the land in Grassy Narrows or elsewhere, Hundert remains under house arrest at his father’s home in Toronto. He jokes that he’s been reading too much Chomsky, but says being jailed confirmed events he’d been witness to through activism in support of Indigenous struggles.

On the inside, it was other prisoners who helped him do the simple things, like fill out forms and navigate the prison system, which Hundert says is designed to dehumanize prisoners and their communities. But he thinks the attempt of the state to quash dissent through repression will have the opposite effect.

“I think in the long run, its going to have the same effect that cracking down on legitimate dissent and the public voices of communities always has,” said Hundert. “The effect is strengthening the resolve of that very voice.”

Already, people with no interest in political radicalism have been radicalized, said Hundert. “For every person that they are pulling out of the movement, to the extent that they’re able to do that through criminalizing and incarcerating us, there are several people to take our place,” he said.

Hundert doesn’t want a focus on the criminalization of activism to obscure the reasons people are in the streets.

“Whether its remote-controlled airplanes dropping bombs in Pakistan, or whether its the OPP attacking Six Nations land defenders, or whether its the Integrated Security Unit criminalizing so-called anarchists, its all about the attempt to break people’s resistance to an imposed order,” he said. “It is important to question just how democratic or legitimate that order is, and lots of people know that, and hanging on to that conviction is just as important as being honest about the experience of criminalization.”

Though this has been a difficult time for Alex’s friends and allies, they remain firm supporters of his work. “Alex’s family and friends are proud that he is putting his future on the line in service of social justice,” said Amy Rossiter, a Professor at York University.

Asked how people can support those still in jail and facing charges, Hundert says beyond giving to the legal defense fund, making space for people to create new alternatives and imagine their own forms of resistance is vital. And although the Crown will appeal Alex’s bail conditions next week in a move that could put him back in jail, he’s clear about what steps organizers can take.

“I think the most important thing we can do is to make space for those communities that have been most silenced in shaping the current system to facilitate a process of transformation with their voices, visions, and practices,” he said.

The Kitchener-Waterloo Community Center for Social justice, which Hundert helped found, is one example of creating that space. “Once we make space it is a lot harder for them to take it away, and no matter what they do to us, other people can join that community and culture of resistance and fill it with what they want.”

Ontario Public Works Act removes probable cause & right to free and peaceful assembly.

There is evidence the police infiltrated “Black Bloc” and should have known their plans. Howard Morton is a criminal lawyer and a member of the Law Union of Ontario

Linchpin Editorial - linchpin.ca

We live in a political and economic system based on constant violence; exploitation of workers, destruction of the environment, war, racist police killings, hunger and homelessness in an environment of plenty, denial of land and self-government to indigenous peoples, plundering of the resources of the Third World and the arming of repressive regimes. This weekend, this quiet violence continued within the G8 and G20 summits. G20 leaders agreed to halve national deficits by 2013; The expected cuts to educational, social services and health care programs will no doubt continue to be carried out on the backs of workers and poor people.

On the streets of Toronto, the police reminded us of the state’s willingness to use blatant violence. Protesters sitting in the streets this morning at a jail solidarity rally were subjected to violent baton attacks, snatch squads and rubber bullets by the Police. Others were boxed in by riot cops and arrested, while being told they had to leave. Sleeping people have been pulled from their homes at gunpoint in the middle of the night.

As of today, well over 600 people have been arrested. Many have been beaten. People who have been arrested have been strip-searched and held in cages, facing long delays in obtaining legal support, including one deaf man who was denied an ASL interpreter. People arrested have included both corporate and independent journalists as well as approximately 200 people, many local residents, who were surrounded by police and held in the pouring rain over four hours. This is how the state responds to anyone who shows dissent.

Common Cause stands in solidarity with everyone who was arrested or assaulted by the police. As anarchist communists, we oppose all state violence. While the violence on the street may dissipate after this weekend, the police will not be going away; they will be remaining in Toronto, or returning to Hamilton, Montreal, Vancouver, or Calgary.

We will continue to resist austerity measures and other policies that exploit and oppress us in our daily lives. Although the street violence today was directed at us in Toronto, the violence of the state continues around the world. The violence of the capitalist state will not stop with the end of the G20 summit; neither will our resistance. We are with those arrested in Toronto, with those who protested, and with those around the world who will continue to fight for our collective liberation.

Free the Toronto 600!
Build the General Strike!

Brand new video from radical hip hop mc’s Test Their Logik, just in time for the G8/G20 in Huntsville and Toronto.