Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 23:13:16 -0400
Subject: Fwd: Jaggi Singh assaulted by police, disappeared



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Jaggi Singh assaulted by police, disappeared
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 23:03:34 -0400

http://ontario.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=646&group=webcast
Jaggi Singh assaulted by police, disappeared
by david creighton 7:26pm Fri Apr 20 '01
address: ottawa phone: 613-728-5716 dcr8on-AT-yahoo.com

The popular activist organizer was attacked by disguised policemen and
whicked away. His whereabouts are now unknown

A group of disguised policemen assaulted and kidnapped the non-violent
activist Jaggi Singh this afternoon. His whereabouts are still unknown
and
no charges have been laid.

“About five o’clock we were standing talking on rue Saint-Jean, a “green
[minimum risk] zone,” Helene Nazon reported, “when three or four
“demonstrators” suddenly attacked Jaggi from behind. They grabbed his
arms,
pushed him down onto the pavement and began beating him. Jaggi shouted
out
and nearby protesters rushed to his rescue,” she continued.

One young woman was shoved to the ground and a man was kicked by the
assailants, she said. When would-be rescuers appeared to have the upper
hand, the assailants drew truncheons from under their coats, announced
they
were police and warned people away. “Then they picked Jaggi up, dragged
him
into an unmarked panel van parked on Sainte-Claire,” Nazon said, “and
sped
away.” Ms Nazon is a member of CASA [Welcoming Committee for the Summit
of
the Americas].

Numerous telephone inquiries to local police authorities revealed no
reports
of Mr Singh’s arrest, location or of any charges being laid.

The assailants are described as “big men, bouncers, dressed up like
protesters,” and the attacked as “completely unprovoked, and in an area
designated “green” by the Comite populaire Saint-Jean-Baptiste
[Patriotic St
John the Baptist Committee].”

Mr Singh is a well-known organizer and journalist who was similarly
treated
at the infamous APEC demonstrations in Vancouver and again in Montreal.
“Jaggi has never committed civil disobedience himself,” Ms Nazon said.

Other members of CASA condemned the brutal responses by police when the
illegal barricades were earlier toppled by demonstrators. “This was
complete
overkill,” said spokesperson Louise Boivin. “There is a problem when a
society that calls itself ‘democratic’ has to suppress legitimate
dissent
with pepper spray, tear gas and attack dogs,” she said.

At a press conference tonight spokesperson Julie-Eve Proulx reported a
number of ‘pre-emptive’ arrests, midnight house breakins by police and
harrassments of organizers. “The torchlight march we organized last
night
was very beautiful and completely peaceful,” she said, “and we can see
no
reason why police are acting in these extraordinary ways.”

“The ‘good news’is that groups that have had difficulties with each
other
for years,” Boivin said, “are now working together very effectively.
These
police actions certainly confirm the nature of the secret negotiations
going
on inside the wall,” she said.

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