‘PRICE TAG TERROR’ BECOMING THE NORM IN ISRAELI SOCIETY

March 29, 2011

by occupiedpalestine

And though settler violence is considered a matter of controversy in Israeli society, a new poll shows that a staggering number of Israelis support the pogroms meted out by fanatical settlers against defenseless Palestinians.

46% of Jewish Israelis support settler “price tag” terror, Congress blames Palestinians for incitement

The police investigation into the Itamar murders remains under a gag order. No individual Palestinian has been accused or even named as a suspect by the police. However, the resident of the neighboring Palestinian village Awarta, who have suffered for years from settler pogroms, are being collectively blamed and punished.

According to a report by three International Solidarity Movement volunteers living under curfew in Awarta, Israeli soldiers and settlers have rampaged through the village in recent days, seeking murder suspects and the satisfaction that comes with retributive violence.

The soldiers reportedly destroyed property, stole money, defecated on the floors of homes, and blindfolded and beat residents, leaving one 28-year-old man so badly injured he had to be smuggled to a hospital in Nablus. Afterwards, approximately 300 masked settlers descended on the town and attacked its residents, breaking the arms of two men.

”Why do you have to punish all these people?” an ISM activist asked one of the soldiers. ”We have to punish these people so they will understand,” the soldier reportedly replied.

Jewish settlers from East Jerusalem filmed themselves humiliating a local Palestinian man, or, as they called it, “lower[ing] the confidence of Palestinians in the neighborhood].”

The one-two punch of settler “price tag” attacks carried out under the watch of the army and with the encouragement of state-funded religious nationalist rabbis is common all over the West Bank.

Most Jewish Israelis view the army with reverence, and are reluctant to criticize its conduct under any circumstance. Although settler violence is considered a matter of controversy in Israeli society, a new poll shows that a staggering number of Israelis support the pogroms meted out by fanatical settlers against defenseless Palestinians.

A new Ynet-Gesher survey of 504 Jewish Israeli adults revealed that 46 percent of Israelis support settler “price tag” terror. Only 33 percent of those polled believed that price tag attacks were “never justified.”

A sectoral breakdown shows that a wide majority of religious nationalist and ultra-Orthodox respondents support the attacks: 56 percent of “traditional” types, 70 percent of those identifying as Orthodox, and 71 percent of the religious nationalists declared price tag violence to be justified. The most remarkable finding, in my opinion, is that 36 percent of secular respondents support settler terror. Even though 56 percent are against the practice, this is a remarkably high number for a population segment that lives primarily inside the Green Line. (The poll results and Ynet article detailing its contents are only in Hebrew at the moment).

68 percent of all of those polled stated their belief that rabbis had the power to stop price tag attacks (for fairly obvious reasons, this opinion is shared by only a minority of religious nationalist settlers). In Safed, a mixed city in Northern Israel that is home to Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, local Orthodox youth have staged a string of vigilante attacks on Palestinian-Israeli residents.

The attacks include the stabbing of a Palestinian Christian man, the torching of Palestinian cars after a Jewish-Arab dialogue meeting, and a wave of racist vandalism. The violence follows Eliyahu’s declaration that the “seducing” of Jewish girls by Arab men was “a form of war” and his drafting of a letter forbidding renting property to Arabs. (55% of Jewish Israelis support the content of Eliyahu’s letter).

Eliyahu recently admitted that the Shin Bet beseeched him to speak out against price tag terror after the Itamar murders. “I told [the Shin Bet agent], if you expect me to stop someone engaging in ‘price tags,’ you’re mistaken,” Eliyahu said. “I don’t work for you. But I want to tell you that unless the government takes action, the public will feel a need to take action. And if you don’t act, even if I stand with my arms wide open, I won’t be able to stop those who would act.”

While taxpayer funded rabbis like Eliyahu (he is literally a state employee) incite with impunity against Palestinians, and cheer on the terror attacks that flow from their words, letters are circulating through the US Congress condemning the Palestinian Authority for incitement.

One of the letters, co-authored by Senators Kirsten Gilibrand (D-NY) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) ~ Kirk is arguably AIPAC’s greatest tool in Congress ~ demanded that the Palestinian Authority “stop allowing the incitement that leads to such crimes [as the one committed in Itamar].”

Though no individual Palestinian has been named as a suspect in the crime and the PA has condemned the murders, top lawmakers like Gilibrand and Kirk have already convicted every Palestinian, providing congressional cover for more destructive raids, vandalism, and price tag terror.

AT LEAST FOUR DEAD, SIXTY MISSING, HUNDREDS INJURED IN BAHRAIN DEMONSTRATIONS

The Tunisian spark is bursting into full flame in the small Kingdom of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. The population of Bahrain is 750,000, so the sheer numbers reached in Egypt are out of the question. Once again it is the well-educated, under employed young of all financial classes participating in these demonstrations, demonstrations that are becoming ugly and definitely fatal for many.
 
Press TV
February 17, 2011

A wounded Shia Bahraini demonstrator 

is looked after at a hospital in Manama 

after being assaulted by security forces on February 17, 2011.

At least four protesters have been killed and about 60 gone missing after Bahraini security forces storm a protest camp in capital Manama.

The head of Bahrain's main Shia opposition bloc has described the riot police attack on the pro-democracy protesters camping out in central Manama as “real terrorism.”

“Whoever took the decision to attack the protest was aiming to kill,” said Abdul Jalil Khalil, a parliamentarian with the Wefaq bloc.

“This is real terrorism,” Reuters quoted him as saying on Thursday.

 Clashes in Pearl Square in central Manama, Bahrain

Bahraini police broke up a protest camp in Pearl Square in downtown Manama on Thursday and fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters, a Press TV correspondent quoted an unnamed opposition lawmaker as saying.

Bahraini protesters have renamed the square as Tahrir Square, after a square with a similar name in Egypt, which became the center of pro-democracy protests.

At least 2,000 pro-democracy protesters have been occupying the Pearl Square in central Manama since Wednesday, after days of clashes that resulted in two deaths and an apology from Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

Four people were killed during the clashes, bringing to seven the total number of those killed since the protests began on Monday when, on Thursday, the Bahraini riot police tried to disperse the crowd by firing tear gas and rubber bullets at the people. Dozens more were injured in the attack.

Witnesses say the nearby roads have almost been cleared of civilian traffic. On Wednesday, Bahraini authorities said that they would seek to restore calm in the streets on Thursday, after days of protests inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and intensified by the deaths of protesters.

Armored vehicles could be seen rumbling through the capital as the government tries to quell the protests inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. 

Riot police clashing with Bahraini pro-democracy protesters in Manama, on February 14.

Bahrain's army has said it will take all necessary measures to ensure security and called on people to avoid going to central areas of Manama.

The magnitude of the pro-democracy protests in Bahrain is unprecedented in the history of the Persian Gulf kingdom and the authorities' efforts to quell them have so far been ineffective.

The demonstrators are demanding a new constitution that would move the country toward democracy and limit the king's powers.

Bahrain is ruled by a royal family, who are blamed for discrimination against the country's Shia population ~ comprising 70 percent of the population. 

An extremely flattering painting of Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa 

whom the people want ousted from power.

Protesters have also called on the Bahraini king to fire his uncle, Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, who has been the country's prime minister since 1971.

The US Navy's Fifth Fleet is based in the kingdom of Bahrain.

FILMS FROM MODERN EGYPT

These flying stones may be a primitive weapon, but they are very effective in the right environment. Here the sky is very dangerous with Mubarak's thugs moving in with their aggressive violence, used to discredit and frighten the protesters.

Over the past week, the mainstream media has not done a good job of communicating how intense the violence and bloodshed in Egypt has become. Trucks and cars have been plowing into groups of protesters at high speed, dozens of protesters have been shot and killed, and the violence only seems to get more crazy with each passing day. 

Seriously, if you cannot handle scenes of graphic violence and people dying, then you probably should not watch the videos posted below. These are 10 of the most shocking videos of the protests in Egypt, and they are incredibly graphic. This is a real revolution that is happening in Egypt and it is very bloody.

What you are about to see is what happens when society collapses. When violence and bloodshed erupt, suddenly life starts becoming very cheap. In a couple of the videos posted below, vehicles just plow right over protesters at full speed and the drivers just keep on going. It is absolutely unbelievable.

If it is not vehicles it is horses and camels ridden by pro Mubarak supporters (mostly plainsclothes police) riding tinto crowds hell bent on beating and hurting. They carry knives and as I posted the other day, machetes. Mubarak will go out on an extremely bad note for adopting these violent policies. 

What is going to happen when American society eventually breaks down? These protesters are merely the beginning as the Rothschilds and their banking cabal fleece the people harder and harder until, like the Egyptians, they have nothing to lose by standing up and being counted. These actions are not confined to the Muslim world.

That is something to think about.

For now, there are some very important lessons about humanity that we can learn from what has been happening in Egypt. The videos posted below are so shocking and so graphic that many of you may find them very difficult to watch....

No matter what we in the West think, this is definitely war.

#1 In this first video, a fire truck runs right over a protester and doesn't even stop.

#2 In this next video, a vehicle steamrolls over an entire group of protesters and just keeps on going.

#3 In the following video, a vehicle plows through dozens of protesters at very high speed and the chaos that erupts afterwards is absolutely incredible.

#4 This next video contains raw footage of a protester being shot dead right in the middle of the street.

#5 The following video from RT shows the incredible chaos that erupted when a group of pro-Mubarak thugs riding horses and camels attacked a large gathering of anti-government protesters.

#6 If you do not want to see the footage of Anderson Cooper getting punched and beat up by protesters, then you are not going to want to watch this next video.

#7 If you do not like dead bodies, then you are not going to want to watch this next video which is filmed in several morgues.

#8 The following short video from RT contains a compilation of very disturbing raw footage from the protests of the last couple of days.

#9 In this next video you can almost feel the rage of the protesters as they hurl rocks at lines of police.

#10 Lastly, have you seen the video of the mysterious "ghost horseman" that was captured in mainstream news footage of the Egyptian protests? What in the world is this thing? Go to the 1:18 mark of the video posted below and watch it for yourself; for the life of me I cannot figure out what it is but it certainly is eerie.

THE OLIVE HARVEST: SEASON FOR SETTLER VIOLENCE

An Israeli volunteer assisting Palestinians from the village of Jayyus harvesting their olive trees. People who call such as me an anti semitic, that useless word, do not seem to "get" the fact we are against criminals who slide by posing as Jews not those like this young Jewess who is defying her state and most likely family and friends to counteract evil.

October 13, 2010

By JoUsef

PERMISSION TO NARRATE

There are somethings we can be certain of. The sun will come up tomorrow. What goes up, must come down. But it is safe to say we can add to these reliable astronomical and physical certainties the fact that Israeli settlers will attack Palestinian civilians and their olive groves during the annual fall olive harvest. Sadly, like clockwork, we are witnessing this again.

The New York Times and the Washington Post both ran stories about this today. Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, is quoted in both articles. Here is an excerpt from the Post piece on what he said:

Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said that the damages and theft of olives were "not a phenomenon" that was widespread and that there had been similar complaints by settlers reporting property damage by Palestinians. He said that investigations had been opened and several suspects questioned and released, but that no one had been charged.

Rosenfeld's suggestion that such attacks are not a widespread phenomenon does not jive with the recorded facts. I've have authored a few posts on settler violence recently. 

Earlier this month I wrote about the use of arson as a settler tactic after a mosque was set on fire. Then, only last week when video surfaced of two Palestinian children being hit by an Israeli settler in a car, I wrote this post on how often Palestinian civilians become victims of vehicular assault. Our settler violence database allows us to also take a closer look into attacks around olive trees, the harvest and civilians during the harvest.

When I first presented the data in September, I mentioned how a spike in the violence occurs during the olive harvest and expected similar increases in violence this year. Below is a graph which shows this spike in the period just before to just after the olive harvest in 2009. 

What you are looking at is the number of attacks per week across the different governorates. 

Week 1 on the X-Axis corresponds to 9/15/2009-9/21/2009 and Week 9 corresponds to 11/10/2009 - 11/16/2009. The spike, which looks like a mountain in this instance because it is increased violence over a protracted period of time, reaches its peak during week 4, (10/6/2009-10/12/2009) almost exactly one year ago today. 

Also, you can clearly see that targets are located in various areas throughout the West Bank, with the heaviest volume occurring in Nablus and Qalqilya. Clearly, to say this is not a widespread phenomenon is to ignore reality. It is in fact a systematic, predictable, widespread phenomenon.

But I'd be wrong to suggest that settler violence targeting Palestinian civilians and their olive treas or other crops only occurs during the olive harvest season. Rather, attacks by settlers on Palestinian olive trees occur year round. What we see during the olive harvest is increased attacks against Palestinians who are out in the groves collecting olives. 

Often in vulnerable, rural areas where Israeli settlers can attack with little fear of being caught or stopped, Palestinian civilians fall prey to settler attacks more in this period. 

But when we look into attacks on the crops and trees themselves, we see that this is not limited only to the period of the harvest. In fact, when look at our data which covered 18 months from Jan. 2009 to Aug. 2010, only about 30% of attacks on olive trees and groves occur during the harvest (late Sept to early Nov). 

The rest of the attacks are distributed across the remainder of the year with a remarkable concentration in June and July, when 40% of attacks occur. Approximately 10% of all acts of settler violence captured in our database are against the olive trees and occasionally other forms of agriculture. 

With over 100 attacks on trees in an 18 month period, this comes out to an average of approximately 5.5 attacks on trees per month.

The attacks on the trees, a source of pride and livelihood for Palestinians, are perpetrated using different tactics. Arson is one, and it is involved in nearly half of the attacks on the trees. The other half is dominated by uprooting, which involves physically removing the trees from the earth using bulldozers.

Here are some examples:

On June 22rd, 2009, as the sun was coming up, Israeli Settlers from the Bat Ayin settlement set fire to land belonging to the village of Beit Ummar that was filled with fruit bearing trees. They also cut an additional 150 trees. This was one of three different settler attacks that day.

On October 3rd, 2009, at about 1P.M., settlers entered the land of the village of Qaryut in the Nablus governorate and set fire to land with fruit bearing trees. When Palestinians came to douse the flames, the settlers opened fire, preventing them. As a result, 150 trees were destroyed. This was one of two different settler attacks that day.

On Feb. 8th, 2010, at about 4P.M., settlers entered the area of Al-Baqa'a east of Hebron, cut down 80 trees and destroyed wiring and shacks on about 5 dunums of land belonging to a Palestinian civilian. This was one of four different settler attacks that day.

We know settlement of origin in about 43% of these cases. Settlers from the settlements of Ariel, Bat Ayin, Bracha, Eli, Elon Moreh, Hagai, Halmish, Havat Gilad, Kedumim, Kfar Etzion, Kfar Tappuah, Maon, Ma'ale Levona, Negohot, Sassia, Shavei Shomron, Shilo and Yitzhar have been involved in destroying Palestinian olive trees during this period. Those in bold have been most active against Palestinian olive trees.

The trees in or around 46 different Palestinian villages have been targeted during the period we analyzed, and they are too many to list here, but Jit, Khirbet Safa, Qaryut, Burin and Luban Ash-Sharqiyya are among the most targeted. A chart below shows the distribution of settler attacks against olive trees and groves across governorates.

So anyone who is trying to tell you that these attacks are isolated incidents, like the spokesman for the Israeli police, is probably trying to hide the fact that they are failing miserably, perhaps intentionally, to do their job in protecting Palestinian civilians and their property by preventing settler attacks. 

Settler violence prevents Palestinians from reaching significant portions of their most important agricultural product, and continues to be a threat to Palestinian civilians on each and every day of their lives.

I WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT THEY DID TO ME

TODAY THE TORONTO STAR HEADLINE READS:

Dyke March helps Toronto heal after G20 weekend;

“Our guys needed this”

~ Sgt. Nancy McLean, a Toronto police officer

Sgt. Nancy McLean has a rainbow flag tucked into her bike helmet
as she monitors the annual Dyke March along Yonge Street.

Now, I am a simple woman and not at all happy having twisted sexual mores and gay acceptance/appreciation shoved down my throat by the mainstream media. Ooops, I am so sorry ~ am I being politically incorrect? So be it. Better to live with honesty than be a hypocrite I always say.

However, the situation here is that I just do not understand how a bunch of dykes having a parade in a city just force fed police/paramilitary action under extremely "iffy" circumstances can possibly be healing! Is this an attempt to shed a "human" touch to the Toronto police force?

"Look I have a rainbow flag in my helmet! I am a warm and fuzzy woman loving human being! How could I or my work mates possibly have bad intentions towards those anarchists?"

This malevolent excuse for a woman cop has to be seen on film to be believed.
She wears this same expression with her every hate-filled movement. A fuzzy warm dyke?

Here are the stories of some of those vicious anarchists that were seized by Toronto's finest. Do you think the following victims are "healed" now?

I WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT THEY DID TO ME

June 28, 2010

Lulu Maxwell, 17, Grade 12, Rosedale Heights

Maxwell and a friend were hanging around near Queen and Dufferin Sts. at a convergence centre for protesters on Sunday afternoon when police started making arrests. “My friend was blowing bubbles and I was scribbling peace signs on the sidewalk.”

Within minutes, her friend was grabbed and Lulu was put up against a wall. Her backpack was searched and Lulu says an officer said she could be charged with possession of dangerous weapons “because I had eyewash solution in my backpack.”

She was taken to the detention centre and almost 12 hours after her arrest was allowed to call her parents. She was released, without charges being laid, at 5 a. m.

Natalie Logan, 21, U of T student

Logan was taking photos at The Esplanade on Saturday evening when she was arrested.

“I was documenting the protest when the police started encircling everyone,” she said. She was taken to the detention centre at 3:30 a.m. “Before they handcuffed me, I peed in a bottle because I knew I wouldn’t be able to otherwise.”

She wasn’t charged and suddenly released at 3:30 p.m., more than 14 hours after her arrest. “I am embarrassed for my city, embarrassed for Toronto Police and embarrassed that this could happen.”

Selwyn Firth, 59, Toronto mayoral candidate

Wanting a better view of a protest outside Queen’s Park on Saturday, Firth walked to an elevated U of T building. When police told him to leave, he identified himself as a mayoral candidate. He refused and was forced to the ground, his cheek lacerated. He was arrested for obstruction.

“I wasn’t obstructing anyone, I was asking questions,” said Firth, who was taken to the Eastern Ave. detention centre where he needed insulin for his Type 1 diabetes. Sunday morning he was taken to the Finch Ave., courthouse and again needed insulin, so was sent to hospital. He later returned to court and was released on $1,000 bail. He is considering suing the city and police.

Erin Boynton, 24, London, Ont.

She was arrested at The Esplanade early Sunday morning after police boxed dozens of protesters in.

“I was with a protest marching peacefully down Yonge from Dundas Square,” she said. “When the cops came at us, many people scattered and those who were left in front of the (Novotel) got arrested.” She said police came from all sides and “squished us in. They didn’t give us a warning to leave…. just announced that we are arresting all of you.”

She said a lot of people at the detention centre were innocent bystanders. “The police violated all our rights . . . there was police brutality. Quite frankly, it was quite disgusting.” Boynton wasn’t charged.

Cameron Fenton, 24, journalist with Dominion in Montreal

“A bunch of us were peacefully protesting (near the Eastern Ave. detention centre) at about 2:30 a.m. when police told us that it was an unlawful assembly and we had to leave,” said Fenton. But they were boxed in and couldn’t leave. Some time later, about 30 of them were walking about two blocks away when they were boxed in again by police.

Everyone was arrested. Fenton said he was never read his legal rights or allowed to make a phone call. “It was cold, there was barely any food or water… there was no place in the cages to even sit,” he said Monday. “That detention centre was tantamount to torture.” He was released on Sunday afternoon, after more than 17 hours in detention.

Emily Berrigan, 23, project manager for a local non-government agency

Berrigan spent her 23rd birthday Saturday night in a detention centre on charges of obstruction and unlawful demonstration.

She was with Oxfam Canada for the labour march in the morning, protesting peacefully. She went to Queen’s Park around 8 p.m. for her bike and within 10 minutes was arrested. She was taken to the detention centre at 9 p.m. and got nothing to eat or drink until 5 a.m., when she was given a sandwich and some water, she said. “The cage I was in had been pepper-sprayed and it stung our eyes and skin,” she said. At about 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, she was taken to the courts at Finch Ave. and released by 7 p.m. “That’s inhumane,” she said.

Adam MacIsaac, P.E.I.

MacIsaac, an independent journalist in town for the G20, took out his video camera to document police search methods and says he was aggressively thrown to the ground. Police began kicking him in the ribs and stunning him with a stun gun. “I have a pacemaker!” he screamed repeatedly, but says they didn’t listen.

MacIsaac was eventually taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital where he was handcuffed to a hospital bed. He says officers harassed him; one repeatedly asked if his pacemaker battery was nuclear. He was later taken to the detention centre and left alone in the back of police cruiser. When police let him go seven hours later, they said they had no idea where his $6000 worth of equipment went. They told him to file a complaint.

Amy Miller, Montreal

Miller, an independent journalist, was on her way to the jail solidarity protest Sunday around noon with fellow journalist Adam MacIsaac. She stopped at Bloor and St. Thomas Sts. where she saw police officers searching a group of young people carrying backpacks. She says police attacked her.

“I was throttled at the neck and held down. Next thing you know I was being cuffed and put in one of the wagons.” She says she was threatened and harassed by police at the Eastern Ave. detention centre. “I was told I was going to be raped, I was told I was going to be gangbanged, I was told that they were going to make sure that I was never going to want to act as a journalist again.”

She also says she spoke to numerous young women who were strip-searched by male officers.

Steve Cruikshank, 28, Newmarket

Cruikshank was among those boxed in by police “without warning” at the Queen St. and Spadina Ave. intersection Sunday evening. Officers kept yelling at people to “Move” but there was nowhere to go. Cruikshank said he asked where they should go and was hit in the face with a riot shield.

He was arrested for breaching the peace and, with 50 others, taken to the Eastern Ave. detention centre.

“I asked for medical attention and they said ‘No’, that I was ‘barely bleeding.’ I asked for a lawyer and wasn’t given access. I asked to make a phone call and they laughed.” About three hours later, he was released without charge.

Stefanie Roy, 21, Joliette, Que.

Roy said she was arrested early Sunday evening “for nothing.”

“We were sitting in front of a bank, talking and wanting to go home, when two big cars came up and police came out of them,” she said. They searched her car and found a hammer and a hatchet that happened to be there from a long time ago, Roy said. She was charged with possessing weapons. Police seized her laptop, boots, and a key-chain photo of her son.

The charge was dropped on Monday, but she is still missing her boots. “I’m not going back in there,” she said, standing in her socks and staring at the detention centre.

Jean-Christophe Martel, 21, Granby, Que.

Martel was arrested on the subway at 11 a.m. Sunday after police searched his bags and found something they considered to be heroin in his emergency medical kit. Police charged him with trafficking heroin.

Martel says he was not involved with the violence in any way.

After 24 hours, he was released from the detention centre Monday afternoon and the charge against him was dropped.

“I’m going back to Quebec,” he said. “I’ll never leave that province again.”

Guillaume Lemarron, 24, Montreal

Lemarron came with friends to the protest, and acted as a street medic on Saturday. They were arrested on Sunday while heading to the Greyhound station to leave town. Lemarron said the bandages and supplies he used in his work were misconstrued as bandanas. He was charged with wearing a disguise.

During the arrest, his glasses were broken. Lemarron said he was protesting for “a better world” and a new democracy. “It’s in the past,” he said of his detention. “But I will not forget what they have done to me and others.”

Gabrielle Neveu, 21, Montreal

Neveu came to Toronto to raise awareness for better health care in developing countries. Neveu had a bandana around her neck. She agreed to let police search her bag but her boyfriend didn’t. The tension escalated. “I don’t think I would have got arrested if I was alone,” she said.

Police charged her with wearing a disguise. She was placed in the back of a police van that soon filled with other people. The van was taken to the detention centre where she stayed until Monday afternoon. Some people were strip-searched. “People were exhausted. No one had the energy to scream,” she said. The charge was later dropped.

Sasha Morrison, 28, Toronto

On Sunday, Morrison was talking to a friend on Queen St. when police searched her bag and discovered an air filter mask. She was charged with wearing a mask with intent. “I’m wearing a mask?” she said “It’s a bogus charge.”

Morrison, a graffiti artist, sometimes works on projects with police. As she stood talking to media, an officer came by and said “Good to see you,” not realizing she had been arrested. She was seething after a 19-hour detention. “I’m vegan. I haven’t had anything to eat until three hours ago.”

David Breed, 34, Toronto

On Sunday, Breed and his girlfriend had stopped to watch the bike rally and were planning to get something to eat before going home to change for his shift as a security guard. “I was not involved in the protest,” he said. “I was standing on the sidewalk.”

Breed was wearing black. Police searched him and found a retractable screwdriver and a Swiss army knife. He was arrested and charged with having concealed weapons. He’d had the knife since he was 10. Breed’s girlfriend, Jennifer Booth, had a legal number scrawled on her arm, but said she didn’t intend to get in trouble. “I’ve been to a lot of these things and he hasn’t,” she said after his release Monday. The charge against Breed has not been dropped.

Philip Dwek, 25, Toronto, medical student

On Sunday evening, Dwek was headed home after studying in a coffee shop when he ran into a crowd at the corner of Queen St. and Spadina Ave. He found himself surrounded by riot police.

“We were in the rain and it was freezing cold, I was trying to hide my medical book, trying to cover it under my shirt,” recalled Dwek, adding police eventually gave him a plastic bag for his book. He was arrested for conspiracy to cause mischief, put in a van and taken to 43 Division, then later released. It cost $60 to get back by taxi.

Dwek understands police were trying to prevent a repeat of the Saturday violence but wishes they were able to tell the protestors and bystanders from the “rebels without a cause.”

Joshua Enns, studying to be math teacher at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo

Enns was arrested during a prayer vigil on Sunday. Police took him behind a bus and searched his bag. He forgot about the “dollar store pocket knife” in his backpack he uses to cut fruit. He was charged with carrying a concealed weapon.

“I don’t endorse violence personally,” he said. “I didn’t come down for the show.” Enns was strip-searched at the detention centre. He couldn’t sleep with the fluorescent lights. He still faces the weapons charge. “Hopefully this will be cleared up so I’ll be able to teach.”

Matthew Beatty, 32, Ajax high school teacher

A volunteer legal observer with Movement Defence Committee (MDC) for the G20 weekend, Beatty was following a protest march down The Esplanade on Saturday evening when he was arrested. “I was on the sidewalks, never jeered or chanted with the crowd,” he said.

He was handcuffed and put in a “cage” with 20 others at the Eastern Ave. detention centre. “There were 40 people in one cage ~ it was brutal, and it was cold.” People were asking for toilet paper to wrap their arms and legs because of the cold, he said. During 18 hours in custody, he was given three cheese sandwiches, three cups of water and a cup of flavoured juice.

Tim V. Wight, 23

Wight says he was at Queen’s Park participating in a peaceful protest all day Saturday. “I was there . . . to protest my concerns about the stripping of human rights within the city and the blatant waste of a billion dollars.”

When police entered the park , Wight began to ask questions about why they were entering a peaceful protest zone. Police told him to move and said they would hit him if he didn’t back up. He prepared to leave but then officers grabbed him, knocked him down and kicked him twice in the face with heavy boots. He was treated for a concussion and had to have his forehead stitched.

Maryam Adrangi, 24

The spokeswoman for the Toronto Community Mobilization Network was arrested Sunday outside activist “convergence space” at Queen and Noble on Sunday afternoon. She said she was driven around the city in an unmarked police van for four hours, taken to the detention centre for about 30 minutes and released without charge.

Adrangi, who was born in Iran, said she endured racist and sexist comments from police, who made fun of her name and the photos they took of her. “I was really angry and frustrated that the cops felt entitled to do that to people,” she said.

“One cop said to me, ‘If you were my daughter I would slap you in the mouth.’ ”

What really shocked me were the comments from readers regarding this whole sordid mess. MOST of them supported the police and refused to acknowledge the existence of agent provocateurs. Canada has been sold and Canadians have been sold a bill of rotten goods.

I wonder if Stephen Harper and this "new" Canada complete with thugs is part of the reason I was not so gungho on celebrating July 1 this year. After the events of the week before, and with all I have learned since last Canada Day, 2009, I have learned too much to celebrate Canada as a political entity. Good people, very naive, gorgeous lands until the bankers destroy and strip it, but horrible politics.