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Canada’s eastern province of Quebec is bracing for more mass demonstrations as talks between students and the provincial authorities aimed at ending months of anti-tuition hikes protests were deadlocked.
Four days of talks over the proposed tuition fee rises reached an impasse on Thursday after Premier Jean Charest’s government walked away from the negotiating table and refused to change its plan to increase university fees.
The talks were considered as the provincial government’s last chance for an immediate resolution to end the mass demonstrations that has swept across the country for about four months.
Student unions have asked for a tuition freeze but the government has ruled it out and passed an anti-protest law to limit student demonstrations across the province.
Student union leaders believed that the government had no intention to compromise with students to end the conflict, and that Minister of Education Michelle Courchesne only used the students as pawns in a political game.
“The Minister of Education said that for political reasons she could not accept a freeze on tuition fees,” spokesman for the student group CLASSE, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, said.
“The government is using the youth to make political gains. They only wanted to sit us down for a public relations move, for a political move, not to negotiate,” said Martine Desjardins, president of the Quebec federation of university students.
The student groups then called on students to pour into the streets of Montreal again on Saturday to voice their opposition to the government’s plans.
Over 2,500 people have been arrested since student protests began in February at over a dozen colleges and universities in Quebec.
The protests against tuition hikes spread throughout the country.
Thousands of people marched in Toronto On Wednesday in solidarity with protesters in Quebec.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International called on Quebec authorities to rescind the emergency law, which outlines strict regulations for demonstrations and conditions of heavy fines for students and their federations.
Two United Nations special reporters also voiced concerns on Wednesday, urging “federal and provincial governments of Canada and Quebec to fully respect the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, expression and association of students affected by two new legislations.”
Quebec's student movement and the swelling ranks of its popular allies staged a massive rally and march in Montreal on May 22 in favour of the students’ fight for free, quality public education and against government repression. Estimates by some mainstream news outlets and by independent observers place the number of participants as high as 400,000. It was the largest social protest in Canadian history and amounted to a massive display of civil disobedience against a special law adopted by the Quebec government four days earlier that aims to break a more than three-month long strike of post-secondary students in the province.
Lead banners on the march read, “100 days of strike, 100 days of (government) contempt!” and “Block the sexist tuition fee hike!” A massive banner of the militant, CLASSE student association was carried overhead by hundreds of marchers and read, “May 22: This is only the beginning!”
Contingents of teachers, professors, high school students, public service workers and other trade unionists joined the march. Marchers bused into Montreal from across the province while people streamed into the city center from neighborhoods throughout the metropolitan region. French-language media termed the march a “monster” demonstration. Montreal's English language daily covered its front page with an aerial photo of the march and a headline reading “River of Red,” referring to the symbolic color of the student movement (symbolizing student indebtedness) that was omnipresent that day.
Leaders of the three largest student associations held an impromptu press conference along the route of the march. Léo Bureau-Blouin of the association of junior college (CEGEP) students (the FECQ) told journalists, “We are united today in this huge demonstration aiming not only to mark 100 days of the strike but also to denounce the Charest (Quebec) government and the course of events following its decision to choose repression over discussion...”
Referring to the draconian Bill 78 that was adopted by Quebec's National Assembly on May 18 and that effectively proscribes the right of students to strike and to protest, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, a leader of CLASSE, the largest of the student federations, told reporters that the law is “absurd and unenforceable. The proof of that is here today, where the street is speaking forcefully.” Challenging Quebec's minister of public security, he stated, “If the minister wants to be true to his law, he will have to levy fines on tens of thousands of people.”
Cops Wield Truncheons and Handcuffs
The students are on strike to block a proposed 75 per cent hike in post-secondary tuition fees over the next seven years. Many consider their fight to be one front in a broader struggle for a society of social and environmental justice.
François-Xavier Clermont, a student at CEGEP du Vieux-Montréal, told the Montreal daily La Presse, “We are fighting against the tuition hike, but we're also fighting against the Northern Plan (a proposal by the Quebec government to expand natural resource exploitation in the vast, north of the province) and against this corrupt government.” He continued, “We have succeeded in opening up a debate over the future of Quebec society. This is already a victory.”
The government of Premier Jean Charest has made an apparent about-face in agreeing to resume talks with the student associations on May 28. But this comes on the heels of a massive escalation of repression in the preceding days, so the government's intent is not clear.
During the evening of May 23, provincial and municipal police forces arrested 518 protesters in Montreal and 150 in Quebec City. Thirty six were arrested two nights earlier in Sherbrooke. The number of arrests in Montreal that evening exceeds those during the infamous declaration of martial law by the Canadian government in October 1970.
Police held the arrested Montreal protesters in buses overnight. The cops had declared an evening protest “illegal” under municipal regulations. One young woman who was detained told CBC Radio that police acted like “animals.” The detainees were denied bathroom access and one man who suffered a cardiac emergency was denied emergency medical treatment. The fine for the alleged offences is $634.
Commentators widely noted that while the arrests in Quebec City and Sherbrooke were done in the name of Bill 78, the eventual charges were for violations of municipal regulations or provincial traffic laws. The government is without doubt aware of the tenuous legality of its law. A two-front legal challenge to Bill 78 has been launched by lawyers on behalf of the student associations. They are seeking a ruling that the law is unconstitutional, which could take a year or more. More immediately, they want the Quebec court to immediately suspend the law's applicability.
Bill 78 allows for fines of student associations that could easily bankrupt them. It assigns criminal responsibility to the associations if they fail to control the acts of their individual members.
While there were few arrests during the monster demonstration on May 22, 113 people were arrested at the evening protest that followed. Some 2,500 arrests have been made since the onset of the student strike.
Repression is Backfiring
The government is counting on a combination of threats, fines and police violence to quell and eventually discourage the student movement. But the opposite is happening – the protest movement is growing. The nightly protests in Montreal that students and supporters have been waging for 30 consecutive nights are now growing exponentially. Roger Rashi, a longtime activist with the Quebec solidaire party, reports that the nightly march of May 24 drew several tens of thousands of participants, ten or twenty times the pre-Bill 78 nightly numbers. What's more, multiple marches are taking place concurrently.
One of the inspirations of the spreading movement is “Angry Mothers in Solidarity” (Mères en colère et solidaires). Nightly, spontaneous protests by mothers in support of the students began weeks ago in working-class districts in the center of Montreal such as Rosemont, Villeray, and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. It began with the banging of pots and pans each evening from apartment balconies and streets, gradually emerging into street protests.
The “pots and pans” movement has now coalesced into multiple, nightly marches and is spreading like wildfire throughout the province. (RT Video Link).
Pots & Pans Protest: Angry Canadians make a bang
Timing and locations each evening are coordinated via Twitter. Thousands of mothers from the movement joined the May 22 March. “I march alongside the other mothers because I am one, but this is really about future generations,” Marie Christine Chabot, 45, a nurse, told the Montreal daily The Gazette on the May 22 march. “The more that education is accessible to everyone, the more society is likely to make the right choices. I see it in my work: People with more education smoke less, eat better, exercise more, and have less stress. We'd all be better off if people were better educated.”
“It's important to show it's not just students out in the streets protesting,” Marie-Claude Gagnon, a social worker and founder of Mères, told the paper. “The symbol of mothers is a good one, and it also helps protect us in the crowd,” said Gagnon, whose children are aged 3, 9 and 13. “The police think twice about wading into a group of mothers and children.”
A new website invites people to post personal declarations of defiance of Bill 78 by posting a photo of themselves along with their written dedication. Called “Arrest Me, Someone!” (Arretez-moi, quelqu'un!) The site has more than 5,000 declarations and the number is growing.
Protesters of all political persuasions are also taking to wearing face covering, in defiance of a Montreal municipal law rushed into adoption May 17 and a similar law threatened by the federal government that makes it illegal to wear a face covering (mask) at a protest declared “illegal.”
A micro-brewery has placed its ‘Grande Noirceur’ beer on special sale. The name translates as ‘the great darkness,’ a term deeply embedded in popular culture that describes the years of rightist government in Quebec under Premier Maurice Duplessis from 1944 to 1959.
The brewery says its daily production is limited to less than 50 bottles in deference to the provision of Bill 78 that requires protests of more than 50 people to seek advanced police permission.
Trade unions, opposition political parties and the Quebec Bar Association have all denounced Bill 78 and called on the government to reach a negotiated settlement with the students.
Discussion Over the Future of the Struggle
The largest student association, CLASSE, is calling for defiance of Bill 78. That issue is being widely discussed among progressive social and political forces, including among members of the Québec solidaire party. The party has voiced strong support for the strike and its members have mobilized.
During the course of May 22 protest, CLASSE did not inform the police of its route for the protest that day, as required by Law 78. The two other large student associations as well as the large trade union contingents joining with them on the march did so. Nevertheless, the vast majority of demonstrators followed the lead of CLASSE in marching on the route of their choosing for hours through the downtown core of the city, including during the afternoon rush hour. The police were powerless to act.
Some student and union leaders quietly project an eventual, electoral outcome to the struggle over tuition fees and the broader issues it has sparked. The opposition Parti québécois, which is supported by most trade union centrals, sits well in polls. The bourgeois nationalist party says it would immediately repeal Law 78 if elected.
But it's not at all clear if the government can call an election. It has problems not just with the student struggle but also with a corruption scandal weighing heavily on it. Last year, the government was obliged to convene a special commission of inquiry into the close ties between the criminal syndicates that run much of the construction industry in the province and successive Liberal Party governments.
Coincidentally, the commission began its public hearings on May 21 and these will continue into the autumn months. Testimony is expected to be especially damning to the party and the current government. A recent poll showed 80 per cent of the population believes the Liberal Party to be thoroughly corrupt.
The Parti québécois is also threatened by potential revelations before the commission. The same poll showed 65 per cent of respondents say they consider past PQ governments to be tainted by similar corruption. The party governed the province for 18 of the past 36 years.
Support for the student strike in Quebec from the rest of Canada has been building, albeit slowly. Students and unions in Ottawa are organizing a solidarity action on May 29, to include a march across the Ottawa River into the neighbouring Gatineau region of Quebec. Ottawa students have already joined several actions in Quebec, including the May 22 march. Hundreds of people attended a solidarity rally in Vancouver on May 22. In Ontario, a student solidarity network has been formed to step up support action in that province.
Trade unions in Canada have provided financial support and contingents of activists came to Montreal for May 22, including Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan. News of the student protest is spreading around the world and solidarity actions have taken place in Paris and New York City.
On the other hand, support from the NDP, the federal party to which many trade unions in English Canada are affiliated, has been all but absent. Party leader Thomas Mulcair explains his party's silence by the fact that education is a provincial responsibility. However, Bill 78 is a massive violation of the rights and freedoms supposedly guaranteed by the Canadian Constitution.
In last year's federal election, the NDP became the official opposition party for the first time in Canadian history. Nearly 60 per cent of the party's MPs represent electoral districts in Quebec. They have apparently been muzzled by the party brass.
The student protest is beginning to worry business interests in the province. A string of large summer events and festivals, including a Grand Prix auto race next month in Montreal, draws hundreds of thousands of cash-wielding visitors each year. Already, hoteliers in Montreal say that bookings in May were down ten percent compared to last year.
In a delicious irony for striking students, a co-leader of CLASSE, Jeanne Reynolds, has won an award for academic excellence from the office of the titular head of the provincial government of Quebec, its Lieutenant Governor. Her “excellence” on the picket lines and in street protests, along with that of tens of thousands of student colleagues, is also winning awards – in the hearts and minds of growing numbers of working-class people in the province.
The Quebec government risks being swept away by a growing tide of human solidarity, with important repercussions for all of Canada. •
Roger Annis is a retired aerospace worker in Vancouver who recently spent time in Montreal reporting on the student strike. He can be reached at rogerannis@hotmail.com
A legal defense committee for students and student associations in Quebec threatened with legal action has been established and can be reached at the following link.
A protester is pepper sprayed during a protest against student tuition hikes on the 100th day of Quebec's student strikes, in downtown Montreal May 22, 2012 (Reuters/Brett Gundlock)
The streets of Montreal have been the scene of massive protests against planned tuition hikes, as well as a law that seeks to limit the right to demonstrate. RT discussed the issue with Corey Pool, an editor of Montreal-based newspaper “The Link.”
RT:Do you believe the protests can sway the government’s position on both the fees and civil rights?
Corey Pool: I guess that’s kind of difficult to answer. It depends on who you ask. The problem with this issue is that it’s extremely polarizing. Some people see these mass arrests as a sign that the government may be winning. Some people use these situations as justification for why this movement exists.
RT:Do you think the protests are still about the fees only, or have they turned into something else now?
CP: The movement has been going on for a long time now. The mainstream media has only caught onto this recently. But now, I think, the best way to describe it is it is an ideological movement. It no longer just encompasses the issue of tuition increases. It’s no longer simply a student issue. I think that’s really exemplified by the nightly demonstrations. This past Tuesday there were thousands of people in the streets and many of them were families, young and old. It’s no longer just an issue of a tuition increase. The issue is much larger now.
RT:What do the people of Quebec think of the strike and the protests?
CP: I think the government is trying to keep it as a student issue led by students that can be quelled with some simple negotiations. But I don’t really think that that is exactly the case. I feel that it’s an ideological issue. It’s a movement that’s grown beyond the simple fact of tuition increases, and now encompasses many problems that are being brought up in the Quebec government – mismanagement of funds, corruption within the government itself, mismanagement of the university system, and generally people are extremely upset. And I don’t think that this issue will simply go away. We are now 103 days into the movement. I don’t think it’s a simple issue that can be resolved.
RT: Are clashes with police likely to continue, given the contentious issue of the emergency law?
CP: It depends on who you ask, but in my opinion, I believe so. Bill 78 is an extremely contentious issue and it’s been opposed by many people, as well as some prominent organizations and unions. I don’t think that this bill, which some consider an unenforceable law, will necessarily quell demonstrations. In fact, over the past few days, what we’ve seen is a more unified body of people. Now there are demonstrations not only every night, but there are people in the streets every single day. At eight o’clock, they come out and they bang pots and pans. I think this one law, if anything, has galvanized the movement in a way.
Over 700 people were arrested throughout Canada on Wednesday after they clashed with police during regular protests against planned tuition hikes and a new moot emergency bill that bans spontaneous demonstrations of over 50 people, requiring organizers to inform the police of the rally's planned route eight hours in advance. This followed a bevy of other rowdy rallies during which skirmishes between protesters and the police broke out.
On Thursday, the government agreed to start negotiations with the four main student groups protesting the tuition hikes. In the meantime, students, unions and around 70 community groups asked the Quebec superior court to throw out most of the law on the grounds that it violates the constitution.
Quebec's provincial government has voted in favor of an emergency law aimed at ending the 14-week rallies and protests against tuition fee hikes.
Following a 21-hour debate overnight Thursday, the National Assembly members approved the legislation, voting 68-48.
The controversial emergency legislation outlined strict regulations governing protests and includes conditions for heavy fines for students and their federations.
Under the new legislation, any individual who prevents students from entering an educational institution or disrupt classes will be fined between CAD 1,000 and CAD 5,000.
The punishments will rise to between CAD 7,000 and CAD 35,000 for a student leader and to between CAD 25,000 and CAD 125,000 for student federations or unions.
The law also forces regulations to govern student protests, requiring protesters to inform police of their demonstration plans including eight hours notice for details such as the itinerary, the duration and the exact time of the action.
Critics, however, considered the law as an affront to individual’s rights to freedom of expression, association and conscience, and believed that the legislature of the French speaking province has showed ill-considered improvisation in dealing with student strike actions.
Lucie Lemonde, a law professor who teaches at University of Quebec in Montreal, even compared the law with the notorious War Measures Act imposed in Quebec during the 1970 FLQ crisis.
"It's the worst law that I've ever seen, except for the War Measures Act. We knew something was coming, but I didn't think they would use it to change the rules of the game in terms of the rights to demonstrate,” he said.
Thousands of people descended to the streets in Montreal and Quebec City late Friday night to voice their opposition to the controversial law.
Quebec students have been holding almost daily demonstrations over the past weeks in an attempt to voice their outrage at the proposed tuition fee rises.
Under the provisional agreement, university fees would increase CAD 1,780 over seven years, or about CAD 254 a year, bringing the total to CAD 4,000 per year. The plan is scheduled to be effective from 2012-13 until 2016-2017 academic years.
The Quebec government has introduced legislation which they say is necessary in order to restore social order during the ongoing student strike, but which critics are denouncing as threatening the right to protest in Quebec.
“This bill, if adopted, is a breach to the fundamental, constitutional rights of the citizens,” said Louis Masson, president of the Quebec Bar Association. The Quebec Bar Association is just one of the organizations that have spoken out since the law was introduced to parliament last night.
The debate began around 9pm Thursday and is ongoing.
Among other things, the law will require all organizers of a demonstration of 10 people or more to submit their itinerary, including route, date, time and duration, to police eight hours in advance, and to refrain from demonstrating within 50 meters of any teaching establishment.
This morning, in a press conference, student leaders and unions also spoke out against the law.
"If we are no longer able to protest in our society, it becomes a totalitarian society," said Louis Roy, head of the Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux (CSN), which represents most university and college teachers in the province. "We are telling our members to defend their fundamental right, the right to demonstrate," he added
One of the spokespeople for the organization representing the majority of the 155,000 students on strike said they may participate in civil disobedience to challenge the law. "[We] are not excluding the possibility of disobeying this special law," said Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, co-spokesperson with the Enlarged Coalition of the Association for a Solidarity Among Student Unions (CLASSE).
As of 12:15, a petition calling for the law to be stopped had 23,000 signatures. The organizers of the petition, online at http://loi78.com/ are trying to reach 100,000 signatures by 4pm today.
The proposed law, known as "Bill 78: A Law Allowing Students to Receive the Education Provided by the School Which They Attend," contains 36 articles. Several of these articles are raising concerns, including:
•Any demonstration including 10 or more people would need to submit its route, location, time, date and duration to police at least eight hours in advance for approval. Police would be allowed to order modifications to the protest.
•Protest organizers, as well as any student association or federation of associations that participate in a demonstration, are accountable for the actions of all participants in the demonstration, under threat of fine.
•All protests that may hinder access to classes, whether directly or indirectly, are not allowed within 50 meters of the grounds of any teaching establishment. All protests within schools that hinder access to classes, stops the resumption or continuation of classes are also banned.
These rules apply to both any action or omission which may lead to classes being disrupted.
The law would also require teachers to report any disruptive actions, which has already led union leaders to denounce that their members would be transformed into a pseudo-police force.
Should any student association be reported to be taking part in these kinds of activities, the government reserves to right to suspend all student union fees (at the rate of one semester's worth of fees per day that the law is broken), as well as access to campus offices. Both fees and access to offices are provided under the Quebec student union accreditation law.
The bill also stipulates that any person who, by act or omission, aids, or by encouragement, counsel, consent, authorization or order, brings, another person to break any of the provisions of this law is also held accountable and is liable to the same fines.
Fines for breaking any aspects of this law would be:
$1,000 to $5,000 for individuals
$7,000 to $35,000 for leaders, employees or representatives of any student association or employees' association, leaders or representatives of an institution, or individual who organizes a demonstration
$25,000 to $125,000 for any student association, federation of associations, employees' association or institution, or moral person, organization or coalition which organizes a demonstration
In case of recurring offenses, fines would double.
If this bill passes, which it most likely will, since the Liberal party holds a majority in parliament, it is still unclear when it will go into effect. Montrealers have held 23 straight night-time demonstrations, with the 24th scheduled for this evening. Each of the demonstrations would have broken multiple provisions of Bill 78 on several occasions.
It is also unclear how the bill will define indirect actions hindering classes. When asked whether wearing a red square in class would violate the law, Education Minister Michelle Courchesne said that that would be up to the courts to decide.
Even those who support the law, such as the Conseil du Patronat du Québec, have expressed concerns that is does not actually lead Quebec out of the tuition fee impasse. On CBC Radio Montreal today, the head of the council said that the government still has not presented a solution to actually end the student strike.
CLASSE has already been calling for a major demonstration on May 22nd, the one hundredth day of the strike. Unions expressed their support for the May 22 action and for challenging the regulations, and comments online and in the media are brimming with anger over the law. Should the government not change route and negotiate with students leaders, all signs point to a continued strike and a very large demonstration on May 22.
Thousands of Spanish students have taken to the streets across the country to protest against the government’s new education cut plans.
University students, high school pupils and teachers joined the protests organized by the national Student’s Union in more than 50 towns across the country on Thursday, AFP reported.
"We have called this demonstration as an initial response to this attack on public education, which is without precedent in the past 35 years," said the union leader, Tohil Delgado.
Several hundred university students took to the central streets of the capital, Madrid, marching behind a banner that read, "Everyone together against the cutbacks".
A large group of high school students also held a demonstration outside the education ministry over the recent reforms that the protesters believed were ruining their education.
Schools and universities all over Spain have staged a series of demonstrations against the harsh austerity measures against education system by the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
Right after the last student protests on February 29, the government announced an additional three billion euros in cost-cutting reforms and increasing the tuition fees to an average 1,500 euros from 1,000 euros.
Education Minister Jose Ignacio Wert reiterated that the cut plans were needed to improve the quality of education and reduce the country’s public deficit.
"These are decisions that we are imposing because of the demands for fiscal consolidation, which the country has agreed too and which it must fulfill," he said.
The Spanish government has planned to shrink its public deficit to 5.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2012 from 8.5 percent in 2011.
Spain’s major teaching unions planned to hold a larger strike on May 22, which is expected to attract widespread support from anti-spending cuts protesters.
Week-long demonstrations over a proposed rise in university tuition fees have erupted into violence in Quebec. Police in Montreal clashed with thousands of students who accuse the government of sabotaging negotiations for a settlement.
Riot police have so far arrested 85 people after a government exclusion of a student group from talks triggered activist ire.
Students have flooded Montreal’s streets over the past few days, up in arms over tuition fee hikes that would see costs rise by 75 percent over the next five years.
Thursday’s riots were declared illegal after demonstrators reportedly pelted police officers with projectiles and threw garbage into the streets.
Demonstrations on Wednesday quickly descended into violence with reports of student activists smashing windows and vandalizing property. Police used tear gas to bring them under control, with three officers injured in the fighting.
A police crackdown on student demonstrations on Saturday 21 also led to the arrest of at least 50 people.
The Quebec government has dismissed a student syndicate from the negotiating table following the violent riots.
Education Minister Line Beauchamp blocked a proposal to resume talks with student syndicate CLASSE on Thursday, accusing the group of promoting violence.
"We can’t ask the government to negotiate with those who use violence as a form of blackmail," Beauchamp said.
Talks are due to resume with two other groups representing university and college students on Friday.
The city’s mayor Gerald Tremblay has appealed for student activists and the local government to make peace before the situation escalates further. He cited reports of demonstrators tossing bricks into the city's subway and dropping rocks off a downtown overpass.
"Montrealers … are fed up. They don't want to go through this. This stuff always happens in Montreal. It's the same thing for the businesses affected… It's the same thing for Montreal's reputation on the world stage," he said about Wednesday night’s riots.
Student protest groups have accused the government of using a “divide and conquer strategy”, sabotaging talks. They say that a settlement was never on the cards, claiming authorities seek to divert attention from the disputed tuition fee increase with the pretext of social unrest.
Journalist Bernard Desgagne told RT that the incidents were “relatively minor,” but police were using them as an excuse “to conduct massive repression.”
“This has profound ramifications, people are very unhappy about the way their political elite are behaving and they feel that the government is not serving the people at all, it’s only serving big financial interests,” he said.
Desgagne added that people were “infuriated” by police brutality towards peaceful protesters, stressing that it would only “fuel public miscontent” and support for the student movement.
The Quebec government has proposed a rise in fees of $325 annually for the next five years, which would still make Montreal one of the cheapest cities to study in the country.
Riot police confront students during a protest April 26, 2012 in Montreal, Canada, over Quebec's plans to raise tuition (AFP Photo/Rogerio Barbosa)
Law enforcement officers in Montreal, Quebec, Canada fired grenades and tear gas into crowds of protesters on Friday as students demonstrated against tuition hikes in a rally that turned violent.
A clash between college students protesting the continuously increasing cost of education in Canada and police erupted on the streets of the city center. Hundreds of demonstrators are reported to have rallied in downtown Montreal against tuition hikes, only to be confronted with police in riot gear during the early afternoon.
By mid-day, at least ten protesters were arrested by authorities and both demonstrators and law enforcement alike have reported to have incurred serious injuries after the students’ rally became marred by fighting on both sides.
"I wasn't doing anything violent," Nicolas Moran, 21, tells a CTV affiliate in Montreal. "A police officer hit me over the head… But I doubt the education minister will denounce violence from police," continued Moran.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation says police used batons, chemical irritants, tear gas and concussion grenades on the protesters. The demonstrators are reported to have met that firestorm with rocks and other projectiles. CTV reports that cars and media trucks have been damaged in the rally.
Moran is a law student at the Université du Québec à Montréal and was one of many protesters that entered the city’s
Palais des congrès on Friday where Premier Jean Charest was scheduled to deliver a speech. Moran suffered a head injury; at least one officer experienced the same.
Premier Charest was expected to lecture on his Plan Nord, a massive development program expected to cost billions of dollars over the next two decades. CTV says Charest claims the initiative will create half a million jobs, but opponents such as Moran and other students say it doesn’t represent what Quebecers really want.
Michel Chossudovsky, the head of the Center for Research on Globalization, says that the reason for the anger is not just the tuition hike but the fact that the government puts the bill for their austerity measures on young people while spending billions in favor of corporations.
“I think that the demonstrations were held at the moment the prime minister decided to launch his Plan Nord, which has advantage of 1.6 billion [Canadian] dollars, is illustrative of the fact that this handout to corporations in millions and millions of dollars is financed at the expense of the livelihood of the young people of Quebec,” Chossudovsky told RT.
Increased tuition imposed on students there have only worsened sentiments between grievous Canadians and the country’s government.
“It’s not just the tuition increase,” 18-year-old Alexis Remartini adds to The Canadian Press. “The movement has grown to include other things we don’t agree with.”
Eight students were arrested as they entered the Palais and delayed Premier Charest’s speech by 45 minutes. The Canadian Press says Charest joked after the protesters were removed from the building that they were probably just trying to get one of the jobs he claims the investment will bring.
Stateside, arrests were reported in Lower Manhattan in New York City at the same time Friday during a separate rally waged by members of America’s Occupy Wall Street movement.
The British anti-cuts campaigners, students leaders and union officials as well as hundreds of online activists will meet next week to discuss ways to push forward their agenda.
The meeting on Saturday will focus on connecting local campaigns with anti-tax avoidance groups, student protesters, unions and anti-racism activists in a motion called NetrootsUK conference which has been organized by bloggers and received backing from the Trade Union Congress (TUC).
One of the organizers of the conference is Sunny Hundal, editor of the leftwing Liberal Conspiracy blog.
"There is widespread concern over what the coalition is doing to our economy and in recent months we've seen an enormous buildup of energy from across the country to do something about it. But most of it has been in separate campaigns. What we're trying to do here is bring together veteran campaigners with new movements so we can learn from each other, and use social media to keep on top of what works and what doesn't. It's the first time we have seen anything like this on such a scale", he said.
Clifford Singer, campaign director of the anti-cuts website False Economy, said there were great advances in online activity in the UK in 2010 but that "much of what is going on is still fragmented. To mobilise hundreds of thousands of people behind anti-cuts campaigns in 2011, we're going to need a more coordinated effort, learning good practice in each other's areas and helping the public see the links between issues and the case for the alternative."
The conference on Saturday is being held at TUC headquarters in central London and will host workshops on hyper-local campaigns, new social media tools and how to transform online campaigns into offline action.
Meanwhile, student protesters have announced several dates on which they will resume their fight against the increase in university tuition fees and education cuts in the new year.
On Wednesday, January 29, groups including the Education Activist Network (EAN) will be holding the fourth “Day X” demonstration to defend the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).
On Saturday, January 29, the National Union of Students (NUS) and University and College Union (UCU) will join the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in holding a large-scale rally in Manchester dubbed: "A Future that Works: National Rally for Young People".
The protest is aimed at highlighting issues relevant to young people including access to education, youth unemployment and government plans to scrap EMA.
On Saturday, January 29, the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) and the EAN are organising a demonstration in London to resume their struggle against tuition fees and funding cuts.
On Saturday, March 26, the NUS will join the TUC national demonstration against spending cuts at Hyde Park, central London. Protesters will march from Victoria to Hyde Park before holding a rally to call for a "Robin Hood" tax on the banks, an end to tax loopholes and fresh policies to boost jobs and green growth.
Israeli forces open fire on Palestinian students demonstrating near a West Bank checkpoint, injuring seven people on Monday, medics say.
According to a Palestinian security official, three of the seven were wounded by live rounds and the others were hit by rubber bullets, AFP reported.
An official at a nearby hospital confirmed that seven people were wounded, some of them with live rounds, without providing further details.
The security official said the demonstrators, mostly students from nearby Birzeit University, were protesting Israel's settlement works in annexed East Jerusalem (al-Quds).
Israel has deployed its forces in Old City in recent days to avoid the tension it caused after announcing a new plan to build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem (al-Quds).
The regime has imposed a lockdown on the West Bank since Friday, and has closed the holy al-Aqsa mosque compound (Temple Mount) in Old City.
The regime seized East Jerusalem (al-Quds) along with the West Bank in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in defiance of international law.
Harvard University's well-known law school, or HLS, was the intellectual training ground for US President Barack Obama (HLS 91'), who through his high marks became editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Obama might find it interesting to know the miles some HLS students have to travel to become expert in their field - only to be turned back.
Consider the case of 3rd year law student Hebah Ismail, who is putting the finishing touches on her studies with Harvard's International Human Rights Clinic.
Like Obama, Hebah entered Harvard law already a world traveller. The US citizen of Egyptian extraction landed at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion recently to study land disputes facing the Arab Bedouin community.
But airport security officials weren't having it.
According to the Harvard paper, Hebah's laptop and cell phone were seized and searched. But that wasn't satisfying enough, so an ultimatum was delivered: log us into your email accounts, or you will be deported and banned from ever entering Israel.
Hebah refused and faced the consequences. She was put on a plane back to the States, unable to conduct her research.
Al Jazeera has reported about how Israeli authorities have been denying NGO workers access into Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Yesterday I wrote that Israel might not be prepared to counter the growing American campus outrage over its policies towards the Palestinians.
But connecting the dots, it is clear this is how they intend to fight back.
A new study flagged in this Israeli newspaper warns that Israel is facing a global delegitimisation campaign.
The prestigious Reut Institute, which issued the report, is headed by an erudite mover-and-shaker named Gidi Grinstein, a lawyer who also attended Harvard.
The Reut Study is comprehensive, and deserves reading in full. But I seriously doubt Grinstein (whom I've known for nearly a decade) would advocate deportation of visiting scholars and field researchers who refuse to let Israeli cybersleuths sign into their Harvard/Gmail acccounts.
On the positive side, at least US immigration officials welcomed Hebah home without incident.
Good thing she wasn't carrying Arabic flash cards.
At least eleven students have been arrested over their interruption of a lecture by the Israeli ambassador to the US at the University of California, Irvine.
Michael Oren was invited to the university by the Jewish Federation of Orange County to speak about Israeli views on the status of the Middle East and Tel Aviv's relationship with Washington.
However as the ambassador was addressing the crowded auditorium, he was interrupted for at least ten times by anti-Israeli students.
"Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech," the first of the ten students yelled before being led away by university police.
The remainder of Oren's speech was drowned by similar remarks, with some students shouting "killer" and "how many Palestinians did you kill?"
By the end of the night, 11 students were arrested and cited for disturbing a public event.
They could face misdemeanor charges as well as university disciplinary hearings that could result in suspensions or dismissals, Cathy Lawhon, Media Relations Director at the UC-Irvine campus said.
The University's Muslim Union was not available for contact but it did issue a statement prior to the event, saying that it strongly opposed and condemned the ambassador's visit, a Press TV correspondent reported from Los Angeles.
"Israel continues its human rights violations, thereby breaking international law and law of Israeli accord," the group had said.
It also added that Israel has committed war crimes against the Gaza Strip and is responsible for the massacre of thousands of Palestinians.
South Africa's Closing Argument Against Israel for Genocide at the ICJ
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