RCMP Deny Harassing Olympic Protesters, I.S.U. Vancouver 2010 Mafia Security Tactics, and Trampling of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, “Intimidation Olympic Style”
"R.C.M.P. Stare Down Protest"
Senior R.C.M.P. Officials can deny harassing Vancouver Olympic protesters all they want and Pat McDonnel can sit and feint innocence as long as he can legally cover it up or maintain deniability, but lets look at the truth – the R.C.M.P.’s actions, not statements, and I.S.U. security behaviours for the 2010 Olympics.
Danika Surm, friend of open anti-Olympic protester Chris Shaw, claims she was approached by two plainclothed Olympic security officers and questioned about her friendship with an anti-Olympic protester. Surm said “she was on her way to class at a south Vancouver campus when she was approached by two plainclothed police officers with the Integrated Security Unit, the force in charge of Olympic security. The two officers questioned her about her friendship with Chris, who teaches neuroscience at the University of British Columbia, and what she knew about his plans to protest against the Olympics in February. The R.C.M.P. then did the same thing to Chris Shaw’s ex-wife, even though the two haven’t been married for 15 years.
Chris Shaw’s own record of events is even more chilling. Author of the Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games, Shaw said RCMP Cpl. Jeff Francis and Vancouver Police Det. Doug Fell of the Joint Intelligence Group just “found him” near Tony’s Coffee Shop on West Broadway during the noon hour on a Wednesday. He tells also of later again “being found” taking a break from his ophthalmology laboratory on the Vancouver General Hospital campus by members of I.S.U. He said he declined a private meeting with the police to discuss his opposition to the Games, but challenged them to hold public forums and invite the press. Shaw also tells of how he was driving up Yukon Street in Vancouver near the police station when two officers in an unmarked car stopped him for no reason. He says he wasn’t doing anything wrong, but when the officers approached, they insisted not only on his identification, but the IDs of the three passengers as well. Shaw questioned whether the officers could do that, and they insisted that the vehicle wasn’t going anywhere until all of the passengers’ IDs were produced. After repeated attempts to contact his lawyer for advice on-site, the four finally produced ID which was recorded and they were allowed to depart. To complete Chris Shaws’ frightful price in speaking out against the games and exercising his guaranteed Charter Rights; the University of B.C. professor was unceremoniously detained and grilled by British officials at Heathrow Airport when he arrived to give a talk in London. In response to questions from Liberal MPs, McDonnell said as far as he knew, Canadian authorities did not have anything to do with it. O.K. Pat we believe you…this is all just coincidence.
I may not agree with the views or actions of some of the names listed under this statement but again lets look past the rhetoric to the intimidating facts.
Cara Fisher admits she is opposed to the Games but said that doesn’t give police the right to knock on her neighbours’ doors or show up at local businesses asking about her whereabouts and associations. “The RCMP visited a diner in my neighbourhood inquiring if I worked there and saying they needed to speak with me because I was a witness to an accident,” Fisher said.
Aboriginal liaison constables David Marchand and Jeff Chartrand and a civilian activist liaison Derek Mcklusky approached Olympics Resistance Network members Garth Mullins and Alissa Westergard-Thorpe after a Jan. 22, Vancouver city council meeting wanting a “private chat”. “They said they were talking to a few groups, they didn’t mention anyone specific, they said no one had met with them yet,” Mullins says. The two refused, “The 2010 plans should be discussed publicly,” Westergard-Thorpe said. “Individual visits (with police) don’t help the public and they end up helping the police to intimidate people.” A public meeting seems much more intelligent than skulking around like this,” added Mullins. Mullins also said he had strange encounter near his workplace on a Wednesday around 3 p.m. Two other I.S.U. members suddenly appeared beside him near the Burrard SkyTrain station and began to question him.
Chartrand refused to comment when contacted. Cpl. Jen Allan of the RCMP Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit said Chartrand, Marchand and Mcklusky are mandated with “opening the lines of communications with a number of our key stakeholders that may be directly or indirectly impacted by our security plan.”
I could list six other factual incidents like this but I am already taking up too much space for this post!
Dave Harris, a former CSIS officer who is now the Director of International and Terrorist Intelligence Programs for Insignis Strategic Research, said that this tactic is not new for law enforcement agents who want to put a chill on potential trouble by letting protesters know they’re being watched.
“I understand the need for security,” says Chris Shaw, but when the R.C.M.P. starts to conduct surveillance on its citizens and visits people who have really only a secondary connection to the protesters themselves, then they are dealing with the entire thing as if they are dealing with a criminal investigation, and that is frightening.
The Integrated Security Unit and the R.C.M.P. have been reached yet refuse to comment. Nor will these divisions publicly and finally state for the record that the I.S.U. and the R.C.M.P. will comply with the “letter” and “the principles” of the law, the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedom as defined by the Supreme Court.
I will remind Canadians reading this that these draconian actions are being taken by our Federal Police Force, our “FBI” over a glorified sporting event. They are Jackbooting the Charter Rights and its “Principles”… “We’re not harassing people; we’re just trying to find out as much information as possible,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner Pat McDonnell testified Thursday before the House of Commons defense committee.
Yet the real bone chilling fact is that a presentation to the May 7-8, 2008 Games Master Planning Program workshop, obtained under Freedom of Information, said so-called “free speech areas” would be discussed at a joint meeting of VANOC, City of Vancouver and the Resort Municipality of Whistler in April 2009. The newspaper 24 Hours learned that one of the protest zones is planned for Hastings Park, the city-owned site of figure skating and short-track speedskating at the Pacific Coliseum.
The R.C.M.P and their history is replete with these types of actions. This is not gathering information; gathering information happens in open forum, with polite phone calls and appointments. This is “INTIMIDATION”. The Mafia have used this tactic for generations to those whom oppose their desires by sending a man to your wife, your friends or business partners and wipe a smudge of charcoal across their chest, and ominously say “Tell Chris Shaw the Gambino family sends their regards.”
What you are doing R.C.M.P. and I.S.U. is making a statement – “It is sending a chilling message, setting a cold hard reality, a subliminal show of force: We are the police and we are watching you. We know who you are, we know where you live and we can find you and get you any time. Your rights do not exist”
The Ministry of Love, at its sharpest point.
Will the R.C.M.P. and I.S.U. follow the lead of the Chief of Police of Vancouver and the V.P.D. (forced finally to comment under a landslide of letters, emails and public forum postings) and guarantee the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, its Principles of Application and the right of Canadians to protest, unfettered by zones and authoritarian constraints; thereby upholding the LAW and its “Principles”? To this date their silence and refusal to answer is the only thing “ominously” speaking for them.
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Tags: isu, Olympics, protest, rcmp, vancouver 2010 winter olympics
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November 28th, 2009 at 5:40 am
The form of protest that needs to take place very soon, is to arm Canadians with staplers in support of Mr. Dizekanski.
Stapler carrying citizens would be making a much larger statement, in support of civil rights and freedoms, in disgust due to the fact that the responsible officers were simply transferred to other Canadian cities and the acknowledgement that WE have not forgotten this atrocity and cowardly act. Mr. Dizekanski was armed with a stapler when he died at the hands of rogue officers.
A stapler is not a sign, does not speak to just the Olympics, but to the ongoing denegration of our civil rights and freedoms, and would not trigger the new Olympic protest bylaws. The Olympics is just one more bogus reason to chip away at civil liberties and our Canadian sovereignty, while our governments sell out to the global re-organization and world government agenda.
February 15th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
For a guy that used to chum around with both the RCMP AND the Vancouver Police every Remembrance Day, Chris Shaw sure likes to distance himself nowadays, doesn’t he? I notice that he doesn’t dwell very long on his history in the American, Canadian and Israeli army either – is that because it diminishes his chances of getting in the pants of that 20 year old angsty pro-palestinian anarchist chick with the pink hair?
Just askin….
February 15th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
I think given the actions of the R.C.M.P. and I.S.U. in this file and their actions, which fly in the face of the “Principles” of the Constitution and the Charter, leading up to the Olympics, I can certainly understand his position and his desire for distance. However in regards to his position, real or imagined, with pink haired anarchists chicks and their feelings about the theft of the Palestinian state, I would prefer not to make comment on this site, at this time.