Just looking at the newest Toronto Police Service’s press release — the effect of seeing one G20 Investigative Unit arrest report released after another — and things look pretty black and white. I’m not only talking about presentation and text (though black space : white space is important to a journalist) of these police press releases, but their stark regularity months after the G20 Summit feels like people are being hunted down. For every person caught by the police, another black and white arrest sheet is issued.

I mean, that’s what police announced/promised they would do with all the photo and video evidence they asked the general public to cough up after the Summit, providing easy uploads on their site and to their Facebook page.

Just to note, the Toronto Community Mobilization Network launched a counter appeal for the public’s help exposing police crimes on July 12, 2010.

But I don’t see how hard it can for anyone to distinguish the protesters from the people documenting the protesters. You know, journalists doing their job.

There are numerous cases of reporters (indymedia, alternative media, mainstream media) getting harassed if not arrested/detained by the police during the Summit. And media types who are used to covering the story are finding themselves part of the story — part of a larger narrative of police misconduct and brutality over the G20 weekend

You can read about my account of being detained in the pouring rain on Sunday June 27, 2010.

I have also compiled a list of accounts of journalists claming they were attacked by police while doing their job. You can see the long list here.

Now the indymedia community has news that indymedia journalist, Juan Pablo Lepore, was arrested on September 2, 2010 by the Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal and transported to Toronto. He has been charges with mischief over $5,000 for his alleged role in the Toronto G20 protests. It was later revealed that he was also charged with mischief endangering life and assault.  

Now, from the testimony I have heard (note: not from the police as we have to deal with yet another publication ban), Lepore wasn’t in Toronto to fuck shit up, he was there to do his job. A job he has a right to do. A Charter Right. Unless the police, already keyed up from breaching other charter rights, decided to continue from smashing the rights of citizens to smashing the rights of journalists. Again, who are the real troublemakers here?

You can read an account of Lapore’s arrest by Tim McSorley here.

According to a statement released by the Friends of Juan Pablo Lapore:  

Quote: Juan Pablo is an Argentinian documentary film-maker and independent journalist, visiting Canada for several months. He grew curious about this country while collaborating in Argentina on a documentary with Canadian resident Nicolas Van Caloen, and came to visit Nicolas here, while returning occasionally to Argentina for professional work.

He has spent most of his time visting Montreal, but travelled, like many Canadian residents, to Toronto last June to document the movement opposing the G20, publishing on online alternative media outlets including ‘cmaq.net’ and ‘2010.mediacoop.ca’.

Juan dedicated his work as a videographer and journalist to the documentation of resistance movement converging, like in Toronto in June, to demonstrate against the criminal policies implemented by institutions like the G20, the IMF or the World Bank. He also documents the daily resistance of Argentinian communities facing the consequences of the same policies, notably in his documentary project Semillas (Seeds).

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Now I’ll be adding Juan Pablo Lapore to the list of journalists who have harassed and hindered by the state for doing their job.

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Ok, don’t want to take my word that *independent* journalism is under threat, here’s a video of Paul Jay from the Real News Network interviewing Jonathan Kay from the National Post concerning the role of the press at demonstrations. Because it’s very hard to get the real story from the streets regarding the police when you’re trapped in a jail by the police.

Regarding a comment directed to Kay concerning the mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators at the Novotel Hotel on Saturday June 26, 2010 into Sunday June 27, 2010, Paul Jay asks Jonathan Kay about the role of the media in that situation since TVO’s Steven Paikin was asked to leave the peaceful sit in before the police moved in (where they arrested Guardian UK reporter Jesse Rosenfeld which you can read about here.

Jonathan Kay responds: “I was actually in a similar situation when I was at Queen and Bloor. I was on a side street trying to cover the action. A group of police came and told us all, ‘you have to leave or you’re going to get arrested’.

“I was presented with the opportunity, (I said) ‘I’m a journalist, I work for the National Post’. It didn’t matter. I had to leave the scene. Like a number of other people who were subsequently detained, I could have stood my ground and said, ‘you know what, I’m not leaving the scene, arrest me!’ I would have spent the night in jail and had a good story. But I didn’t do that. I left.”

Question by Paul Jay: “If journalists leave the scene then where is freedom of the press? I’m not talking about getting in the way of the police’s work. But there is a difference between leaving the scene and getting in the way. If you can’t remove yourself just out of the field that the police are operating and then report on the police, how is the public to know if the police are abusing their powers or not? Where is the freedom of the press in that?”

Response by Jonathan Kay: “In terms of police abuse, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation where police behaviour was more closely scrutinized.”

Jonathan Kay goes on to refute that there were any cases of injury to activists or cases of police misconduct during the G20 protests. See the whole interview here.

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I got their card in Québéc City during the FTAA protests and have kept it in my wallet since. Check them out. They’re awesome! Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.

Krystalline Kraus

krystalline kraus is an intrepid explorer and reporter from Toronto, Canada. A veteran activist and journalist for rabble.ca, she needs no aviator goggles, gas mask or red cape but proceeds fearlessly...