P.O.W.E.R., SFPIRG, Care Not Cops & CSSDP Vancouver stand with the Pro-Palestine Rail Blockade Defendants
P.O.W.E.R., SFPIRG, Care Not Cops & CSSDP Vancouver stand with the Pro-Palestine Rail Blockade Defendants
Support the 13 Rail Blockaders legal fund before next week's court date.
JOINT STATEMENT: P.O.W.E.R, the Simon Fraser Public Interest Group (SFPIRG), Care Not Cops and the Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy’s (CSSDP) Vancouver Chapter stand in solidarity with the 13 members of our community facing state repression – first via direct police violence, and now with farcical mischief charges – for an act of civil disobedience against the genocide in Gaza conducted by the occupation of Israel and the settler-state’s enablers.
Police officers were recorded on video shamefully escalating the situation and using extreme force against people protesting an active genocide.
As P.O.W.E.R. researcher Karl put it, the response from the police and carceral state is especially concerning because the Blockaders were “expressing an opinion shared by most decent people.”
Another P.O.W.E.R researcher, Jon, described how this police response shared logic with individual interactions he and others face in the Downtown Eastside — explaining that it is common for Vancouver Police officers to escalate situations through intimidation and threats of violence when someone tries to assert their rights, which negates people’s rights in practice.
This is just one part of the cycle of criminalization many people endure in Vancouver.
P.O.W.E.R researcher Tyson Singh ਟਾਈਸਨ ਸਿੰਘ added, “...from Hastings Street to the Gaza Strip, we stand against this interconnected, international state repression of civil disobedience, the genocide by perpetuated by Israel against the Palestinian people, and alongside the brave Rail Blockaders for taking tangible action against genocide.”
BACKGROUND:
Israel: Palestinian Healthcare Workers Tortured
Undoing colonial carcerality everywhere: Palestine & the global drug war
‘Abuse of power’: Hospitals, med schools crack down on Palestine advocacy
Health Authority & Nonprofit Silence on Palestine Encourages BC’s Complicity in Genocide
Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential
Ruling by UN’s top court means Canada and the U.S. could be complicit in Gaza genocide
Alarmingly high prevalence of high-risk drug use among Palestinian males
Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center
From Palestine to the Downtown Eastside: Settler colonialism creates violence