[Peace-discuss] Oh, Canada!

[C. G. Estabrook]

	G20 cops ‘threatened women with rape’
	By Daniel Tencer
	Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 -- 8:33 pm

Journalists covering the G20 summit in Toronto, Canada, last weekend have 
accused the local police of threatening them with rape, using male officers to 
strip-search young women, and even inappropriately touching an underage girl.

Four reporters have filed complaints with the province of Ontario's police 
oversight agency. According to the Canwest News Service, those four include 
Jesse Rosenfeld, a freelancer for the UK's Guardian whose alleged beating at the 
hands of Toronto police was chronicled on Twitter, as well Amy Miller of the 
Alternative Media Center.

Miller told a press conference earlier this week that she had her press pass 
ripped away from her and was "throttled by the neck and held down" while trying 
to record a confrontation between police and protesters. She was detained for 13 
hours in a cage in a converted film studio on the city's east side, along with 
about 25 other women.

"I was told I was going to be raped, I was told I was going to be gang-banged, I 
was told that I was never going to want to act as a journalist again by making 
sure that I would be repeatedly raped while I was in jail," Miller said.

Miller described the police's alleged behavior as "repulsive and completely 
inappropriate."
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She also said she saw women being strip-searched by male officers, and that many 
of the women who emerged from detention were "definitely traumatized."

Reporters also allege that "one under-aged girl was improperly touched by a male 
officer while held at an Eastern Ave. detention center," the QMI news agency 
reports.

In a rare criticism of Canada, Amnesty International called on the country's 
political leadership to hold a public inquiry into the policing of the G20 
summit, which ran from June 26 to 27 and attracted between 10,000 and 25,000 
protesters. All told, more than 900 people were arrested during the summit -- 
reportedly a record high for this kind of summit meeting.

Faced with growing criticism, political leaders and Toronto police chief Bill 
Blair have been fighting back against accusations that the police response to a 
gang of black-clad anarchists setting police cars on fire and breaking windows 
was excessive.

Chief Blair held a conference Tuesday where he described the vandals as 
"terrorists" and put on display a cache of weapons evidently seized from 
protesters at the summit. But the public-relations triumph turned to 
embarrassment when it emerged that some of the weapons on display were not 
related to the G20 protests.

The Toronto Sun reports that some of the weapons there, including arrows seized 
by police near the G20 site, were toys that belonged to a man who was on his way 
to a fantasy role-playing game when he was stopped by police, a day before the 
G20 summit.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said that police conduct during the 
meeting of the leaders of the world's top economies, was "at times, 
disproportionate, arbitrary and excessive."

The response to pockets of criminal activity was also "unprecedented, 
disproportionate and, at times, unconstitutional," the rights group said in a 
report.

The abuses "exceeded the threshold of a few isolated incidents" and "they demand 
accountability," it said in calling for an inquiry into police conduct.

Toronto's mayor and police chief Blair said the city's Police Services Board, a 
civilian oversight panel, would review the squad's actions, which they also 
defended.

"The fact that there were no serious injuries arising from all of the actions of 
the police over the course of the weekend is quite frankly extraordinary under 
the circumstances," said police chief Bill Blair.

Officers "showed remarkable restraint in the face of enormous provocation," he 
added. "They did their jobs."

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0630/g20-cops-threatened-women-rape/