Jaggi Singh live on New Media & Politics Jan 21st

There has been a marked increase by Western governments all over the world to crimialize political activism in recent years, and this includes the Canadian government. Friday morning's guest on New Media and Politics, Jaggi Singh knows first-hand the tactics Canadian authorities are only too willing to employ to quash dissent. In 1997 he was arrested, wrestled to the ground on the UBC campus by three plainclothes police officers, handcuffed, thrown in the back of an unmarked car with tinted glass, driven off and locked up during the APEC summit. Jaggi Singh was charged with assault but in February of 1999 the charges were dropped and the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP ruled that, "Mr. Jaggi Singh was arrested on a warrant based on a spurious charge; the manner of his arrest was inappropriate in the circumstances; the timing of the arrest was calculated to prevent him from attending protests on November 25; the bail conditions sought were overly restrictive."
 
Mr. Singh continued to attend Canadian rallies and protests, and continued to face arrests including in October of 2000, when he was arrested for particpating in a riot, illegal assembly and public mischeif -- in April of 2003 he was acquitted of of the riot charges. He gained widespread notoriety as the longest-detained demonstrator arrested by police at the Quebec Summit of the Americas. Witnesses reported that, "he was grabbed from behind by police masquerading as protesters" and "dragged away in a beige van." Mr. Singh was held for a total of 17 days, and charged with breaking conditions from previous arrests and with weapons charges - for a mock catapult that launched teddy bears that was actually constructed and operated by an unrelated group from Edmonton. Eventually the weapons charges were dropped and a stay of proceedings based on "unreasonable delay and abuse of process," was accepted.
 
He has also participated in protests against the Afghanistan war for which he was arrested and charged, for International Women`s Day in 2007, when he was again arrested for allegedly violating his bail conditions which prohibited him from attending illegal or non-peaceful demonstrations -- by all accounts the protest was peaceful until police officers rushed towards Mr. Singh, whom they grabbed and threw against a nearby police car. Other marchers gathered around the car out of concern for the violent way in which police were intervening. Police began hitting and pushing people indiscriminately. Several people were knocked to the ground with batons and night sticks ... The police showed a total disregard for the injuries mounting around them.
 
More recently at the G-20 in Toronto, turned himself into the Toronto police following the issuance of an arrest warrant. He was granted bail on July 12, after 10,000$ was paid by two sureties, one of which was the Québec provincial deputy Amir Khadir, from the Quebec Solidaire Party. In addition to this bail, 75,000$ more, guarantied this time by Amir Khadir and two other people whose identity was not revealed, will be charged in case Singh breaks his release conditions, which are the following: house arrest at the home of one of the garantors; handing in his passport to the authorities; he must not use a cellular phone; he must not have any contacts with the 16 other activists charged with conspiracy in connection with the G20 protests.
 
Clearly, the Canadian government has done everything it can to silence Mr. Singh again and again as well as people like Alex Hundert. This is an unacceptable state of affairs and needs to be understood and addressed by the Canadian public because our rights` are at stake here. If we simply stand by and do nothing the the authorities can continue to use the law as a cudgel to silence any of us when it suits them as well.

Mr. Singh is currently working at Concordia with QPIRG: The Quebec Public Interest Research Group at Concordia which is a resource centre for student and community research and organizing. They work to raise awareness and support grassroots activism around diverse social and environmental issues. Their work is rooted in an anti-oppression analysis and practice and they seek to make campus-community links and inspire social change through engaging, inclusive and non-hierarchical approaches.