Activists jailed for putting up posters

Of course, when you put up posters advocating that people (gasp) protest, I suppose you're tempting fate:

About 200 kilometres from where world leaders will soon gather, two London political activists spent the night in city police cells over posters inviting people to Toronto to protest the G8 and G20 summits.

Darius Mirshahi, 25, and Andrew Cadotte, 19, flashed a peace sign and stood on the courthouse steps moments after their releases Wednesday afternoon and ripped open the police-issued, clear plastic bags containing their personal effects.

As the wind whipped up and papers flew, defence lawyer Dale Ives cautioned them: "Don't let that blow away guys or they'll charge you with littering."

Mirshahi, a founder of the Fanshawe College social justice club and Cadotte, who raises money for the Red Cross, Greenpeace and Amnesty International, are accused of gluing protest posters on government-owned mailboxes and hydro boxes.

They're each charged with seven counts of mischief.

But observers think the message, not the crime, was what kept them in custody.

From the London Free Press. Think they'd have been detained overnight if they put up posters about a lost kitten?

Thousands protest prorogation

It seems that the issue indeed resonates with a lot of Canadians:

In a display that was anything but apathetic, thousands of Canadians of varying political stripes clogged city streets across Canada demanding Prime Minister Stephen Harper reopen Parliament and get back to work.

Hordes of protesters crammed Toronto’s downtown square, cradling signs denouncing the Prime Minister’s decision to suspend Parliament until early March.

More than 3,000 people closed down a busy section of Yonge Street to sing, march and chant anti-Harper slogans.

Source. We didn't get that many people in Winnipeg, but it wasn't a bad turnout, as the following photos will show:









The Free Press estimates the turnout in Winnipeg at "over 300", which is more than Calgary or Edmonton got (surprise surprise). But even those cities got significant rallies apparently; perhaps it was unfair of me to offhandedly comment that the Calgary organizers could consider it a success if they got more people out than those in Brandon. And lest we Winnipeggers get too smug, Waterloo and London got over 500 each.

In any case, one wonders if Harper's worried yet. He ought to be...

Could Harper be in trouble this time?

The Toronto Star seems to think so:

OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to shut down Parliament for the next two months is facing a growing public uprising, which is building on social networks across Canada and is set to spill over in dozens of protest rallies this month.

"Get back to work" is the rallying cry on a Facebook page that has been gaining thousands of supporters each day since it was launched last week – approaching 20,000 by the end of the day on Monday.

It now has chapters in about 20 major centres, including Toronto, and demonstrations are planned for Saturday, Jan. 23 in those cities.

Interesting. Is this the beginning of the end of the Harper era, or just wishful thinking on the Star's part? We'll have a better idea once the 23rd rolls around; hopefully the turnout will be high at the demos. The Facebook page for the planned rallies is here.

Thousands march in Paris against university "reform"

Yeah, well, the quotation marks weren't there in the original headline, so sue me. The actual article is worth a read, though:

Some 43,000 students, researchers and professors took to streets in Paris and other French cities Tuesday to demand an increase in scholarship funds and protest government plans to cut university jobs amid the economic downturn.

The protests are the latest of several challenges piling up for President Nicolas Sarkozy, who faced nationwide strikes and protests last month by workers who say his government hasn't done enough to ease the pain of the crisis.

Some 17,000 protesters gathered at the Pantheon on Paris' Left Bank, according to police. Another 26,000 protested in cities from Strasbourg in the east to Toulouse in the Pyrenees and Nantes near the Atlantic, according to police estimates.

Source. And given the authorities' tendency to lowball these things, that's a lot of angry people. In a typical North American city you'd be lucky to get a fraction of that. I wonder why that is? It isn't like they don't have TV over there, so why hasn't it sapped their resolve the way it seems to have sapped ours?