[van-announce] International Day Against Police Brutality Day To Go Ahead As Planned

[resist admin]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 01:07:20 -0800
From: Calvin Woida <calvinwoida at hotmail.com>

Comrades:


PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY (SORRY ABOUT ANY CROSS POSTINGS)


Dear Friends, Comrades, Allies, Sisters & Brothers:


This SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 12:00 noon, at VICTORY SQUARE (West Hastings &
Cambie) there will be the INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY March &
Rally, to protest the on-going and systemic harassment, violence and abuse
by the police against our communities.  This event is happening at the same
time as other IDAPB Actions in Montreal, Europe and elsewhere.

In the last year, in Vancouver alone, we have witnessed the brutal police
assault on homeless people and their supporters camped outside the
Woodward’s building (where the homeless had their meager possessions crushed
in garbage dumpsters), the “Britannia Police Riot” which resulted in the
violent arrests of 9 anti-poverty and community activists on the City’s
Eastside, and the release of the PIVOT Legal Society’s report, “To Serve and
Protect,” which documents dozens of cases of misconduct by the Vancouver
Police Department, including some which actually meet the definition of
“torture” as defined by the United Nations (to view a full copy of the
report go to www.pivotlegal.org).

And just last week, an RCMP Officer shot and killed a First Nations woman in
Alert Bay on Vancouver Island during a family argument!

Organizers in Vancouver have been working on IDAPB for months;
unfortunately, our efforts have partly been overshadowed by the next big
mass mobilization against the impending US/British attack on the people of
Iraq, which has been called for the exact same time.

While it is important to oppose and resist this war, there is also a war
going on at home against the poor & marginalized, First Nations, immigrants
& refugees, people of colour, political activists, in fact against anybody
who stands in the way of yuppie developers, the business community and the
governments and cops who support them.  As the Gordon Campbell Liberals
escalate the war on the poor in BC, and the Federal Liberals impose border
controls, ID cards, deportations and other reactionary measures against our
sisters and brothers from the “Third World,” under the guise of a “war on
terrorism,” the police will more heavily be relied upon to contain,
criminalize and suppress those who are affected by these brutal policies,
and against those who fight back.

WE THEREFORE APPEAL TO ALL SOCIAL JUSTICE, ANTI-POVERTY AND ANTI-WAR
ACTIVISTS, AND TO ALL OTHERS CONCERNED WITH THE PLIGHT OF THE POOREST AND
MOST OPPRESSED IN OUR COMMUNITIES:  ATTEND THE VANCOUVER 2003 INTERNATIONAL
DAY AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY MARCH AND RALLY!

For more information, please go to www.resist.ca/~copb-van.


(The above was written by a member of the International Day Against Police
Brutality Working Group, an organizing committee composed of members of the
Collective Opposed to Police Brutality-Vancouver, the Anti-Poverty Committee
and individual activists, but does not necessarily reflect the views of
COPB-V, APC or others).