Quebec City bans scarves
Struggle over FTAA protest gets bizarre
By Josina
Dunkel
Montreal
An arbitrary ruling by the governments of Quebec City and
its surrounding suburbs has prohibited people from wearing
scarves and hats that partially or fully cover the face. Public
reaction to the law has been negative. It is clearly illegal
and discriminates especially against Muslim women.
Why make such a ridiculous law at this time, when across the
northern territories people are bundling up against the
cold?
The real targets of this law are the anti-globalization
protesters who are planning to come to Quebec City for the
upcoming Free Trade Area of the Americas Summit. The April
20-22 demonstrations are expected to attract thousands of union
workers, opponents of capitalist globalization, and militants
from environmental and other social causes.
The Quebec City government says that by wearing scarves,
individuals lose their individual identity and become more
prone to violence.
A precedent for hiding one's identity to commit violence,
however, has been established by the riot police themselves,
who have been observed many times taking off their badges
before carrying out violent actions against demonstrators.
Scarves, on the other hand, are worn for reasons other than
hiding one's face and identity. Most important, they protect
people from tear gas and pepper spray, two substances police
use to disperse protests.
The New Democratic Party, a social-democratic third party in
Canada, opposes the FTAA. Its 13 members of Parliament, who
will be protesting in April, have objected to the no-scarf
ruling.
The party leader, Alexa McDonough, demanded assurances in
Parliament that pepper spray, unlawful detainment and strip
searches will not be used against protesters in Quebec
City.
She asked, "Will this government assure the public that an
appropriate balance will be struck between the responsibility
to maintain order and security and the right of citizens to
peaceful and meaningful protests throughout the summit?"
Herb Gray, the deputy prime minister, responded, "However
sincere the protests, they cannot be allowed to stand in the
way of rational argument." In other words, the government would
make no promises that the right to protest will be upheld.
Authorities fearful
of another Seattle
The protests in Quebec City are expected to be just as
militant as those in Seattle and Washington in the U.S. and
Prague in the Czech Republic.
The authorities have already raised a barbed-wire fence to
separate the inner core of the city, where the secret
negotiations will take place, from the area they have
reluctantly allotted to protesters. This no-scarf rule makes it
clear that this protest will see the same type of
anti-democratic government force as characterized the earlier
ones.
The law has raised many eyebrows across Canada. On April 2,
protests will be held in every major city just on this issue of
scarf wearing.
People are encouraged to wear scarves that day, whether they
can attend the protests or not, to raise awareness of the
arbitrary law now in place in Quebec City and the surrounding
area.
Meanwhile, the Canadian capitalist press is beginning to
sound doubtful about the summit. The Toronto Globe and Mail of
March 5 wrote, "With the Summit of the Americas less than seven
weeks away, evidence is building that negotiations toward a
hemispheric free-trade area are coming unglued."
After mentioning a trade war between Canada and Brazil, the
paper added, "There's also a growing group of protesters
opposed to a new free-trade deal--including many of the same
forces that eventually killed the Multilateral Agreement on
Investment--preparing to turn April's Summit of the Americas in
Quebec City into a replay of the 1999 World Trade Organization
meeting in Seattle.
"Those meetings degenerated into a running street battle
between protesters and police, with little of substance being
accomplished at the negotiating table."
The article concludes, "Some 3,000 to 5,000 RCMP
officers--billed as the largest police presence in Canadian
history--will be on hand for the summit, a number that will
likely be dwarfed by those committed to making sure the deal
never happens."
Demonstrators will be coming to the events from all over
Canada and the United States. There will be supporting protests
at several border-crossing sites, including San Diego-Tijuana,
Buffalo, N.Y., and Vermont. For information in the United
States, readers can contact the International Action Center, 39
W. 14th St., New York, NY 10011, phone (212) 633-6646, Web site
www.iacenter.org.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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