[antiwar-van] International Day Against Police Brutality

[chaos at planet-save.com]

March 15th, 2005, will mark the ninth year of the International Day
Against Police Brutality (IDAPB). It first began in 1997 as an initiative
of the Black Flag collective in Switzerland, with the help of the Montreal
Collective Opposed to Police Brutality. The date was chosen because on
March 15th, two children, aged 11 and 12, were beaten by the Swiss police.

We are individuals who have been involved in organizing IDAPB events for
the past two years in Vancouver. This time around we preparing for a march
through the streets on the night of March 15th, starting at 7:00 pm at
Victory Square on the corner of Hastings and Cambie Street.

We are not calling for a protest or a demonstration. Our purpose is not to
whine to the media about how awful the police are. Instead, we want to
open up space for people that are directly affected by police brutality to
express their anger and take action. We are not a charity, religious, or
legal group trying to save the poor.

We are individuals who do not want to live under the clubs and watchful
eyes of the cops, and we want to fight alongside those who feel the same
way. We choose to organize independently from all political activist
groups and parties, and encourage others to form affinity groups and
initiate actions against police control. Events leading up to March 15th
are also in the works.

In every society the police are the frontline soldiers and occupying army
in service of the rich. Vancouver itself is the product of the violent
displacement, imprisonment and forced religious indoctrination of the
indigenous peoples of the Sto:lo, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations.
The Vancouver police murder of Frank Paul (a Mi'kmaq man) in 1998, the
non-investigation of the missing women cases, and the escalated police
occupation of the Downtown Eastside since April 2003 are only the most
recent examples of this ongoing legacy of colonialism. The police
brutality and killings that make the headlines are only the tip of the
iceberg. The real problem is the parasitic economic system that the cops
are paid to defend.

The Vancouver Police Department is fighting a war for control of the city.
With the Safe Streets Act and the ongoing yuppification of Vancouver
neighbourhoods, this war can only escalate. IDAPB is a step towards
building effective resistance to the police at a practical level.

With respect to the memory of Vancouver residents killed by the police
(Gerald Chenery, Robert Bagnell, Roman Andreichikov, Chistopher Ecklund,
Benny Matson, Jeff Berg, Frank Paul, and others), let's take the streets
on March 15th.

Independent IDAPB Organizing Group - Vancouver

idapb at lycos.com

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