March 12, 2010

Independent Jewish Voices (IJV)...welcomes yesterday's defeat of MP Tim Uppal's House of Commons motion condemning Israeli Apartheid Week..."This shows courage to stand up to the Orwellian attempts by Israel's supporters to bully Israel's critics into silence..."

The banking crisis was not cataclysmic; the financing bubbles that caused it had been developing for many years. So where were the banks’ auditors? Why were bank financial statements showing high levels of profitability right up to the point of the financial collapse? What went wrong with the audit of these banks? Could it have had something to do with excessive standardization? Less than a decade after Arthur Andersen, has the CA profession learnt anything?

It has come to our attention that the Canada Border Services Agency invaded a shelter for women - on February 27, looking to track down Jane, a single mom and survivor of violence from Ghana...“It’s so scary...I thought the shelter was supposed to be a safe space for me and my baby. I’m scared not just for myself, but for non-status women in shelters everywhere who are facing the same fear...”

“These were not the 'Greenest Games', they were the Freeway Olympics...The [British Columbia] government has been attempting to brand itself as a 'Green Leader' during these games, yet their own studies show that provincial greenhouse gas emission targets are being undermined by their massive freeway expansion scheme...There is nothing green about paving farmland.”

-- Transportation Planner and GatewaySucks.org Organizer Eric Doherty

February 25th, 2010

VANCOUVER - The Olympic Resistance Network (ORN) has declared the success of the Convergence and protests against the 2010 Winter Olympics as a victory both against the Olympic industry and for local struggles for social and environmental justice. In spite of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) attempts to cover up the human rights and environmental violations of the corporate sponsors and host governments, the mobilization of communities across the country has forced the issues of homelessness, colonization, policing, public debt and environmental destruction into the public debate.

On February 12th and 13th, 2010, thousands of courageous individuals came together to resist the 2010 Olympic police state and to attack the corporations plundering the land and deepening poverty. We write this communique as participants in and organizers of the black bloc presence at these demonstrations, known as “Take Back Our City” and “2010 Heart Attack.”

The Olympic Resistance Network is receiving news of a growing number of anti-Olympic protestors and Independent Journalists being denied entry at the Canadian border...At least two delegates...[going] to the Indigenous Peoples Assembly in Secwepemc Territories were denied entry into Canada. Other anti-Olympic protestors report extensive laptop and cell phone searches as well as hours-long interrogations.

For Immediate Release – Saturday, February 6, 2010

Martin Macias Jr., an independent media reporter from Chicago traveling to cover the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver BC, has been rejected by Canadian border agents and held without outside contact for at least 7 hours...Macias...was a leading member of No Games Chicago - which successfully opposed Chicago's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Yet another reason to go vegetarian or vegan.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

On Thursday February 4, representatives from the Olympic Resistance Network and allied groups will be hosting a press scrum [in Pigeon Park in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver]...“While Olympic corporate sponsors are getting bailed out, Indigenous lands are being stolen, people are becoming homeless, thousands are losing their jobs and access to public services, the environment is being destroyed, and civil liberties are being eroded with almost a billion dollars sunk into surveillance. This negative Olympic legacy is turning into a growing anti-Olympic legacy of resistance across the country.”

By Witness Against Torture (WAT) - January 22, 2010

In a dramatic protest, 42 activists with Witness Against Torture were arrested this afternoon at the U.S. Capitol. The protest comes on the eve of the since-voided deadline President Obama had set for closing the prison camp at Guantanamo...Inside the Capitol, 14 activists performed a "memorial service" for the three men whose deaths at Guantanamo in 2006 were initially reported as suicides and callously described as "acts of asymmetrical warfare" by military officials.

A growing faction of Olympic activists plan to converge at various events throughout the Vancouver 2010 Olympics with a strong, yet silent message: “No Comment!”

By DTES Womens' Centre Power of Women Group - January 11, 2010

“[Prime Minister of Canada Stephen] Harper and other politicians are always quick to point out the undemocratic nature of other countries. To us, Canada is a failed state given the consistent and systematic failure of all levels of government to address the pressing issues of homelessness, gentrification, missing and murdered women, poverty, and criminalization in the DTES. We are demanding that the government prorogue the Olympics!”

--Harsha Walia, Project Coordinator of the Downtown Eastside Womens' Centre

This Christmas Eve more than 40 people gathered at the main gate to Victoria Park in London to protest the Olympic torch relay.

British Columbia Civil Liberties Association - December 22, 2009

Vancouver, B.C. – In a letter promising that undercover police officers and agents will not provoke others into violence, the head of the 2010 Olympic police force has refused to promise that his undercover officers won’t take over and direct the activities of activist groups, or commit illegal acts themselves.