[van-announce] Fwd: Arrest of Ivan Drury, an APC organizer

[Michael Young]

I received this on another list I'm on. Does anyone have any recent word on
Ivan's 'status' and whether the cops have moved in on any one else?

m/.


>>
>>***PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY***
>>
>>
>>Sunday, October 6th, 1:30 AM
>>
>>Tonight at around 11:00 PM, Vancouver Police arrested Ivan Drury, an
>>organizer with the Anti-Poverty Committee and the Woodwards Coalition of
>>Squatters and Supporters.
>>The police had a warrant for his arrest based on
>>four charges, two counts of obstructing a peace officer and two counts of
>>assaulting police. He was taken to the jailhouse at Main and Cordova, and,
>>according to the police who arrested him, he will be held overnight. These
>>charges stem from the demonstration at Brittania on Thursday at a
>>scheduled Campbell speaking engagement that was cancelled due to the
>>protest. We are suspecting that Ivan will be asked to not associate with
>>any APC members as a condition for his release, and at this point he has
>>stated that he will refuse to sign any such conditions.
>>
>>As many of you already are aware, this is one of many times in the past
>>few months that the police have arrested political activists and
>>organizers involved in the struggle against the BC Liberal government.
>>This is the fourth time Ivan has been thrown in jail since June 15th; 54
>>people were arrested in the Woodwards building on the 21st, 11 more were
>>arrested the following Sunday, and this past Thursday another 8 were
>>arrested. The 8 people arrested on Thursday were all charged with either
>>obstruction or assault on a police officer, and they were all given 'no
>>association' orders as part of their release conditions, meaning they are
>>to have no contact with anyone else who was arrested. These trumped up
>>charges are based on the fact that these people are politically active
>>and/or refused to comply when the police started arresting people without
>>  cause. We already saw this with the June 15th demonstration, where one
>>person was charged with assaulting a police officer and held overnight,
>>only to have the charges dropped later.
>>
>>It is beyond doubt that the Anti-Poverty Committee (and other elements of
>>the anti-Campbell movement) are under attack by the police. With the
>>escalation in the charges being applied, clearly the government is
>>shifting gears on us. The BC Liberals are using the police and the
>>judicial system to crack down on our movement and halt our efforts to
>>build a militant resistance to the Campbell regime. We are not going to
>>back down, though. This will only strengthen our resolve and conviction,
>>and so far it has also strengthened our support from other groups. We will
>>defend ourselves on any front that they open up against us, and we will
>>not be derailed in our struggle to defeat this government.
>>
>>Of course, we can't defend ourselves against these legal attacks on our
>>own, and any group/individual who is serious about stopping Campbell
>>cannot stand by while the government cracks down on organizations like the
>>Anti-Poverty Committee and the Woodward's Coalition. At this stage it is
>>very true that an injury to one is an injury to all. Unless we work
>>together to defend our comrades when they are attacked by the police,
>>nobody will be able to build any sort of effective fight against the
>>government in these conditions. Nobody. History has shown how effectively
>>the state can destroy movements by arresting activists and hampering their
>>ability to organize. We can't let them do this to us.
>>
>>We, the Anti-Poverty Committee, are appealing to all individuals and
>>organizations to help us defend ourselves in this legal battle with the
>>police. We need lawyers willing to defend us immediately: we also need
>>financial support to set up a legal defense fund, because we can't pretend
>>that this is not going to happen in the future. We are asking any
>>organizations and individuals with the means to donate money to help us
>>set this up. Please call our office at 604-682-2726 if you are able to
>>help us out with this, or call us at <mailto:apc at resist.ca>apc at resist.ca.
>>We are an independent,
>>grassroots organization that currently receives no sustained funding, and
>>we need all the financial support we can get.
>>In solidarity,
>>
>>Mike Krebs
>>Anti-Poverty Committee
>>
>>
>>
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>
>***************************
>
>When the rich declare war, it is the poor who die.  - Jean-Paul Sartre
>

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"You cannot have liberty in this world without what you call moral virtue;
you cannot have moral virtue without the slavery of that half of the human
population who hate what you call moral virtue"

				+William Blake.