On April 23, 2013, Montreal City Council voted to maintain the anti-protest by-law P-6.
It's not at City Hall that P-6 will be defeated, but rather on the streets with our
continued defiance and disobedience. ---- 84 community groups have already endorsed the
public statement below, clearly stating that they will not negotiate demonstration routes
with the police. We encourage more community organizations to do so as well. ---- Please
share the statement below with local organizations. Send notifications of endorsing groups
to: info@clac-montreal.net ---- [English below French or:
www.solidarityacrossborders.org/en/solidarity-against-police-repression-in-montreal-we-will-not-submit-to-municipal-by-law-p-6]
COMMUNITY STATEMENT (updated November 22, 2013)
-> Solidarity against police repression in Montreal: We will not submit to the municipal
by-law P-6
-> With this public declaration, we assert our opposition to by-law P-6: we will continue
to demonstrate without negotiating our demo routes with police, and we will systematically
challenge all tickets that arise from this by-law.
The past years have been marked by an escalation of police repression against political
protesters in Montreal. As our political movements take to the streets in larger numbers,
with more frequency and militancy, we are attacked more brutally and arbitrarily than
ever, with batons, pepper spray, tear gas, sound grenades, and rubber bullets. Our friends
are mass arrested, humiliated, kettled, and in many cases badly injured.
Within this context of police escalation against political protesters, the Montreal police
(SPVM) are attempting to normalize another practice: arresting demonstrators before they
can even begin to demonstrate, or even gather to demonstrate. Three times within one week
- March 15, 2013 on the International Day Against Police Brutality; March 18, 2013 before
a planned night demo; and March 22, 2013 on the anniversary of student strike protests -
the Montreal police stopped demonstrations before they could begin by surrounding
protesters with riot police and arresting them en masse, in the hundreds. One clear goal
of the police tactic is to scare demonstrators, and potential demonstrators, from taking
to the streets
The SPVM can't be bothered to make criminal charges. Instead, they use municipal by-law
"P-6" which makes demonstrations that don't provide an advance itinerary to the police to
be a contravention of the by-law. A municipal by-law offense is not a criminal charge,
it's the equivalent of a parking ticket. However, the P-6 offence was raised to more than
$500 ($637 with fees) for a first offence last May in the context of the student strike
movement.
The P-6 by-law prohibits ?obstructing the movement, pace or presence? of citizens who are
also using public space at the same time. How can we take the streets without obstructing
vehicular or pedestrian traffic? Moreover, the P-6 by-law demands not only communicating
demo routes in advance, but also the approval of our routes by the police. This is the
equivalent of giving the police the arbitrary power to refuse our routes if they judge
them to be too disruptive, and also to prevent marching to locations that have been chosen
as political ?targets.?
We refuse to negotiate with the police our freedom of expression, our right to demonstrate
and our right to disrupt the existing social, political and economic order that we
consider profoundly unjust and illegitimate.
Part of the response is in our hands, as part of grassroots, autonomous community
organizations. There is no obligation to provide the police our demo routes, and the
Montreal police in particular, who abuse their authority with impunity, don't deserve any
accountability from us. Instead, we're accountable to each other, and the social movements
we come from. We always retain the right to protest spontaneously, and with demo routes
that reflects our needs and demands.
In the face of police repression, let's take back the streets with our weapons of
solidarity and support.
This statement is endorsed by:
1. La Convergence les luttes anticapitalistes (CLAC)
2. Anarchopanda pour la gratuit? scolaire
3. Action Anti-Raciste / Anti-Racist Action (ARA)
4. Alliance des ?tudiants et ?tudiantes en beaux-arts ? Concordia (FASA)
5. Apatrides anonymes
6. Artivistic
7. Assembl?e populaire et autonome de Centre-Sud (APAQ Centre-Sud)
8. Assembl?e populaire et autonome de Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (APAQ-Hochelaga)
9. Assembl?e populaire autonome de Montr?al (APAM)
10. Assembl?e populaire et autonome du Plateau Mt-Royal (APAQ-Plateau)
11. Assembl?e populaire et autonome de Villeray (APAQ-Villeray)
12. Association des Employ?Es OccasonielLEs de l'Universite de McGill (AEOUM) /
Association of McGill Univeristy Support Employees (AMUSE)
13. Association ?tudiante de service social de l'Universit? de Montr?al (A?SSUM)
14. Association facultaire ?tudiante des arts (AFEA-UQ?M)
15. Association facultaire ?tudiante de science politique et droit (AFESPED-UQ?M)
16. Association facultaire ?tudiante des sciences humaines (AFESH-UQ?M)
17. Association pour la libert? d??xpression (AL?)
18. Association pour une solidarit? syndicale ?tudiante (ASS?)
19. La Belle ?poque
20. Centre Social Autog?r? (CSA)
21. Centre de travailleurs et travailleuses immigrants (CTI)
22. Centre des femmes d'ici et d'ailleurs
23. Centre des femmes de Laval
24. Centre des femmes de Verdun
25. Centre for Gender Advocacy
26. Cinema Politica Concordia
27. Coalition Justice pour les victimes de bavures polici?res
28. Collectif de la Marche des lesbiennes de Montr?al / Montreal Dyke March Collective
29. Collectif oppos? ? la brutalit? polici?re (COBP)
30. Collectif de solidarit? anti-coloniale / Anti-Colonial Solidarity Collective
31. Collectif les Sorci?res
32. Collectif Volatile Works
34. Comit? logement Ahuntsic-Cartierville
35. Comit? logement Ville-Marie
36. Council of the Education Graduate Students' Society (McGill University)
37. La Cuisine du peuple
38. CKUT Steering Committee
39. CUTV News Collective
40. Dignidad Migrante
41. L'Ensemble de l'insurrection chaotique
42. Les Fr?res et Soeurs d'?mile-Nelligan
43. Front d'action populaire pour le r?am?nagement urbain (FRAPRU)
44. Graduate Student Association (GSA) at Concordia
45. Greenpeace au Qu?bec
46. Guet des Activit?s Paralogiques, Propagandistes et Antid?mocratiques (GAPPA)
47. Independent Jewish Voices-Montreal
48. Justice climatique Montr?al / Climate Justice Montreal
49. Maille ? Part
50. Midnight Kitchen at McGill
51. Montr?al-Nord R?publik
52. M.O.U.S.T.A.C.H.E.S. (Mouvement Or(i)gasmique Ultra Subversif de Th?orie et d'Action
Contre l'H?t?ronormativit? Et le Sexisme)
53. Mouvement Action Ch?mage de Longueuil
54. Mouvement Action-Ch?mage de Montr?al
55. Mouvement Action Justice (MAJ)
56. 99%Media
57. Organisation populaire des droits sociaux de la r?gion de Montr?al (OPDS-RM)
58. People's Potato at Concordia
59. Personne n?est ill?gal / No One Is Illegal-Montr?al
60. P!NK BLOC Montr?al
61. La Pointe Libertaire
62. POPIR-Comit? Logement
63. Profs contre la hausse
64. Projet Accompagement Solidarit? Colombie (PASC)
65. Projet De violence et d'intimidation
66. QPIRG Concordia
67. QPIRG McGill
68. Radical Reference Montreal
69. RadLaw McGill
70. Ras-le-bol, soupe populaire de l'UQ?M
71. R.A.S.H. Montr?al
72. Regroupement des comit?s logement et associations de locataires du Qu?bec (RCLALQ)
73. R?seau de la Commission populaire / People?s Commission Network
74. R?seau qu?b?cois des groupes ?cologistes (RQGE)
75. R?sistance citoyenne de Qu?bec
76. Soci?t? Bolivarienne du Qu?bec
77. Solidarit? sans fronti?res
78. Stella
79. Student Print Association at Concordia
80. Syndicat des ?tudiant-e-s employ?-e-s de l'UQ?M (S?TUE)
81. Syndicat ?tudiant du C?gep de Marie-Victorin (S?CMV)
82. Tadamon
83. Union communiste libertaire (UCL)
84. Universit? Populaire des Sciences de l'Information (UPopSi)
[If your association, group or organization endorses this declaration, please contact
info@clac-montreal.net]
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