Re: <nettime> [Fwd: Police pretending to be protestors in Montebello Quebec to instigate a discrediting riot....]

["Michael Truscello" <mj2trusc@artsmail.uwaterloo.ca>]

Patrice,

Now the Quebec police are admitting their role (but denying they
wanted to start a riot):

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/08/23/police-montebello.html?ref=rss
Quebec police admit they went undercover at Montebello protest
Last Updated: Thursday, August 23, 2007 | 7:52 PM ET
CBC News

Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that their officers
disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protest at the North
American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.

However, the police force denied allegations its undercover officers
were there on Monday to provoke the crowd and instigate violence.

"At no time did the police of the Sûreté du Québec act as instigators
or commit criminal acts," the police force said in French in a news
release. "It is not in the police force's policies, nor in its
strategies, to act in that manner."

"At all times, they responded within their mandate to keep order and
security."

Police said the undercover officers were only at the protest to
locate and identify non-peaceful protesters in order to prevent any
incidents.

Police came under fire Tuesday, when a video surfaced on YouTube
that appeared to show three plain-clothed police officers at the
protest with bandanas and masks across their faces. One of the men was
carrying a rock.

In the video, protest organizers in suits order the men to put the
rock down, call them police instigators and try unsuccessfully to
unmask them.

Protest organizers on Wednesday played the video for the media at
a news conference in Ottawa. One of the organizers, union leader
Dave Coles, explained that one reason protesters knew the men's true
identities was because they were wearing the same boots as other
police officers.

Coles on Wednesday said the only thing he didn't know was whether the
men were Quebec police, RCMP or hired security officers.

"[Our union] believes that the security force at Montebello were
ordered to infiltrate our peaceful assembly and provoke incidents,"
Coles, who is president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers
Union, said at the time.

The protest at Montebello occurred outside the Fairmont Le Château
Montebello hotel, near Ottawa, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper
was meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President
Felipe Calderon. The summit about border security, free trade and
other issues began Monday and finished Tuesday.

Protesters said they gathered to voice their concern about Canada
losing control of its energy, water resources and borders. Others
decried what they said was a high level of secrecy at the summit.





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