 |
VANCOUVER: There will be protest zones during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, but the head of security won’t say where.
A 24 hours source said venues with so-called “free speech areas” include the Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Centre, Pacific Coliseum and Thunderbird Arena. All three are in or near public parks.
“We haven’t decided where they will be yet, because we haven’t had all the discussions yet,” said RCMP Asst. Comm. Bud Mercer, chief of the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit.
Mercer was asked if he would deny those are venues with protest zones.
“I’ve told you what I’ll tell you,” he replied.
Mercer said the voluntary zones will be havens for lawful protest “that are visible, are well-placed where they will be seen, and where their message will be heard.”
Mercer said the threat level for the Games is low but he claims there are local, regional, national and international groups considering, contemplating or planning illegal protests.
During Tuesday’s Vancouver city council meeting, he showed council members various suggestive images he printed from websites, including a photo of a Riot 2010 banner, a cartoon of Vancouver 2010 mascots holding molotov cocktails and a photo of three hooded people in front of the Olympic flag stolen from city hall in 2007.
“Those individuals that are planning on engaging in violent or criminal protest will maintain my interest and I would suggest that the Canadian public would expect me to do nothing but,” he said.
More than a dozen Olympic Resistance Network members were approached at their homes, near their workplaces and at transit stations in early June. They hired civil liberties lawyer Jason Gratl who wrote a cease and desist letter to Mercer. Gratl also said he would act as a go-between should police want to communicate with his clients.
“In Canada there’s nothing wrong with the police approaching people,” Mercer said. “People in Canada have the right to say, ‘no I don’t want to talk to you.’”
Mercer said North American events are no stranger to illegal protest, including the 1994 Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver, 1999 World Trade Organization "battle in Seattle" and the 2001 Quebec City Summit of the Americas. Police at the Quebec event were criticized for going undercover and acting like protesters.
But an Olympics opponent said those events turned ugly because of poor crowd control methods by police and lack of leadership by lawmakers.
“It was the police overreacting in my view, not the protesters,” said Chris Shaw an ORN member and author of Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games. “The political authority, the civil authority has to set the stage for what happens. The police belong to them, they answer to them.”
Shaw said governments must command police to strictly adhere to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Mercer said 40,000 background checks are underway on accredited Games visitors with another 100,000 to go. V2010 ISU has 454 full-time staff and will grow to 500 in three months. It will be in charge of security for Games’ venues, transportation networks and critical infrastructure for 60 days, from Jan. 23 to March 24. The “theatre of operations” extends below the 49th parallel into Washington state land, airspace and water.