Olympic Security Harassment of No2010 Victoria
Anti-Olympic activists call police encounters ‘harassment’
http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/victorianews/news/5512...
Members of the No 2010 Victoria activist group are accusing Olympic security police of harassment and limiting freedom of speech.
By Erin Cardone - Victoria News, August 26, 2009 3:00 PM
Members of the No 2010 Victoria activist group are accusing Olympic security police of harassment and limiting freedom of speech.
“Any person who is a plainclothes officer waiting outside your house – if they’re not welcome, for me, that’s harassment,” said Tamara Herman, a member of the group.
“What we’re doing is completely out in the open,” Herman said. “No 2010 Victoria is doing no secret actions. I think that trying to intercept a group that’s working openly does not represent a strong commitment to freedom of speech.”
So far, three people affiliated with the anti-Olympics organization have been approached by Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit officers with questions about their plans.
Herman’s roommate was approached by two officers on her way to work last week.
“They knew when she left for work and they were able to put her face to her name so that would suggest we’re being observed,” Herman said.
No 2010 Victoria has held a few anti-Olympics demonstrations over the past two years – the latest being in May, with members displaying banners and shouting slogans on Douglas Street.
Th demonstrations are not violent and no members have been arrested for their activism.
The group is planning another protest during the torch relay on Oct. 30. The organization’s mandate is to criticize government financial decisions – No 2010 Victoria believes taxpayers’ dollars would be better spent solving homelessness or funding a new needle exchange in Victoria than on the Winter Olympic Games.
Cpl. Bert Paquet, spokesperson for V2010 ISU, said police officers affiliated with the security team are not limiting people’s rights.
“Usually what we try to do is try to respect people’s privacy rights not to talk to us if they don’t want to, but we basically do what police officers have been doing for hundreds of years and make contact by knocking on someone’s door and engaging in conversation that way,” he said.
V2010 ISU officers have not quashed No 2010 Victoria’s demonstrations or stopped them from meeting. The police team is tasked with security at protests across Canada before and during the Olympics.
When the security unit catches wind of an anti-Olympics group or individual, “it’s our duty to follow up,” Paquet said. “We encounter a lot of people that make it very clear they don’t want to talk to us.”
In that case, he added, officers leave those people alone.