2010 Olympic Flag Illuminating Ceremony Disrupted

VANCOUVER - A large crowd of protesters used an Olympic flag-illumination ceremony Monday night at Vancouver city hall to protest everything from poverty and homelessness to Vancouver's missing women and native issues.

Against a backdrop of heavy security - including Vancouver Police's Emergency Response Team and horse-mounted officers - several hundred people shouted anti-Olympic slogans on the city hall north lawn.

At least one person was arrested.

Police and city hall security nearly outnumbered the protesters, who in their own right outnumbered casual onlookers who turned out to see the lights turned on to illuminate two large 2010 Winter Games flag poles.

Police searched everyone - including media - who entered the public area in front of a fenced-off area for dignitaries.

The clear presence of police was also a response to last week's night-time theft of a massive Olympic flag from one of the two seven-storey flag poles at city hall. A group calling itself the Native Warriors Society later claimed responsibility in memory of Harriet Nahanee, a native protester who recently died.

The incident took place on the same day members of the International Olympic Committee's co-ordination commission arrived to inspect the Olympic planning progress by its Vancouver organizers.

Vancouver Police Const. Tim Fanning said police are still actively investigating the theft but have no leads as to the identity of the three people pictured in a photograph the Native Warriors Society issued showing it had the flag in its possession.

Tewanee Joseph, the executive director of the Four Host First Nations Secretariat, also said he had no idea who represents the warrior society.

The secretariat represents the four bands on whose traditional territory the Olympics will be held.

Fanning said the increased police presence Monday night at the flag-lighting ceremony was necessary in light of last week's theft and the disruption at another ceremony on Feb. 12 when the Olympic clock was unveiled at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

In that incident, anti-Olympics protesters, some of them armed with rocks and paint-filled balloons, tried to storm the stage. Four people were arrested.

The following week, the Vancouver Organizing Committee insisted all future public events held in the open had to include security fencing separating the public from dignitaries.

jeffleepng.canwest.com

Vancouver Sun