(This public statement is endorsed by Solidarity Across Borders.)It’s not at City Hall that P-6 will be defeated, but on the streets! We will not submit to municipal by-law P-6
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.
86 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
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COMMUNITY STATEMENT
-> 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 gratuité scolaire
3. Action Anti-Raciste / Anti-Racist Action (ARA)
4. Alliance des étudiants et étudiantes en beaux-arts à Concordia (FASA) 5. Apatrides anonymes
6. Artivistic
7. Assemblée populaire et autonome de Centre-Sud (APAQ Centre-Sud) 8. Assemblée populaire et autonome de Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
(APAQ-Hochelaga)
9. Assemblée populaire autonome de Montréal (APAM)
10. Assemblée populaire et autonome du Plateau Mt-Royal (APAQ-Plateau)
11. Assemblée populaire et autonome de Villeray (APAQ-Villeray)
12. Association des EmployéEs OccasonielLEs de l’Universite de McGill (AEOUM) / Association of McGill Univeristy Support Employees (AMUSE)
13. Association étudiante de service social de l’Université de Montréal (AÉSSUM)
14. Association facultaire étudiante des arts (AFEA-UQÀM)
15. Association facultaire étudiante de science politique et droit (AFESPED-UQÀM)
16. Association facultaire étudiante des sciences humaines (AFESH-UQÀM)
17. Association pour la liberté d’éxpression (ALÉ)
18. Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ)
19. La Belle Époque
20. Centre Social Autogéré (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 policières
28. Collectif de la Marche des lesbiennes de Montréal / Montreal Dyke March Collective
29. Collectif opposé à la brutalité policière (COBP)
30. Collectif de solidarité anti-coloniale / Anti-Colonial Solidarity Collective
31. Collectif les Sorcières
32. Collectif Volatile Works
34. Comité logement Ahuntsic-Cartierville
35. Comité 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 Frères et Soeurs d’Émile-Nelligan
43. Front d’action populaire pour le réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU)
44. Graduate Student Association (GSA) at Concordia
45. Greenpeace au Québec
46. Guet des Activités Paralogiques, Propagandistes et Antidémocratiques (GAPPA)
47. Independent Jewish Voices-Montreal
48. Justice climatique Montréal / Climate Justice Montreal
49. Maille à Part
50. Midnight Kitchen at McGill
51. Montréal-Nord Républik
52. M.O.U.S.T.A.C.H.E.S. (Mouvement Or(i)gasmique Ultra Subversif de Théorie et d’Action Contre l’Hétéronormativité Et le Sexisme)
53. Mouvement Action Chômage de Longueuil
54. Mouvement Action-Chômage de Montréal
55. Mouvement Action Justice (MAJ)
56. 99%Media
57. Organisation populaire des droits sociaux de la région de Montréal (OPDS-RM)
58. Parti communiste révolutionnaire (PCR)
59. Parti communiste du Québec (PCQ)
60. People’s Potato at Concordia
61. Personne n’est illégal / No One Is Illegal-Montréal
62. P!NK BLOC Montréal
63. La Pointe Libertaire
64. POPIR-Comité Logement
65. Profs contre la hausse
66. Projet Accompagement Solidarité Colombie (PASC)
67. Projet De violence et d’intimidation
68. QPIRG Concordia
69. QPIRG McGill
70. Radical Reference Montreal
71. RadLaw McGill
72. Ras-le-bol, soupe populaire de l’UQÀM
73. R.A.S.H. Montréal
74. Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ)
75. Réseau de la Commission populaire / People’s Commission Network
76. Réseau québécois des groupes écologistes (RQGE)
77. Résistance citoyenne de Québec
78. Société Bolivarienne du Québec
79. Solidarité sans frontières
80. Stella
81. Student Print Association at Concordia
82. Syndicat des étudiant-e-s employé-e-s de l’UQÀM (SÉTUE)
83. Syndicat étudiant du Cégep de Marie-Victorin (SÉCMV)
84. Tadamon!
85. Union communiste libertaire (UCL)
86. Université Populaire des Sciences de l’Information (UPopSi)
[If your association, group or organization endorses this declaration, please contact info@clac-montreal.net]