Winnipeg: Olympic Torch Protested & Briefly Delayed

January 5 - The Olympic torch relay was successfully disrupted in Winnipeg
this evening. The torch and parade were blockaded for fifteen minutes,
after which time the relay was forced to extinguish the torch, and the
torch and relay team were transported forward in a truck.

The demonstration began when approximately 50 people assembled at the
Forks and handed out literature to people attending the torch event.

The demonstration marched from the Forks down Broadway on the sidewalk,
and then on the boulevard, to meet the torch relay from the opposite
direction, posting "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land" stickers along the
way.

Five people were dressed as Olympic rings and carried torches that were
lit as the demonstration approached the official Olympic torchbearer.

Each ring represented an issue associated with the Olympics: Homelessness
and the criminalization of the poor, massive police spending and the
criminalization of dissent, environmental destruction, missing and murdered
women, and the theft of native land.

When the demonstration reached the torchbearer, protestors took the street
and blockaded the torch parade for fifteen minutes, chanting slogans and
distributing leaflets.

The torch was extinguished and transported forward in a truck.
Demonstrators were pushed out of the street by the Winnipeg Police Service.