Thursday, November 24, 2011

Tomato Heirs

Toronto's Mayor Rob Ford, alternately known by internet posters as "Big Tomato Face," holds a press conference announcing that Occupy Toronto will not be allowed to peacefully demonstrate again in Toronto following an eviction from St. James Park supported by a Canadian court decision activists decry as violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

See below in youtube as the 1% press and Mayor's cohorts chuckle at their own "questions" and jokes about unions as Ford astonishingly declares people will no longer be allowed to peacefully demonstrate.



On the good ol' boys' union chuckle, Toronto union activists had presented a powerful voice opposing the eviction at the public park where activists had been camping out since Oct. 15th. 

Courtesy of National Post
Photographer:  Peter J. Thompson
Toronto union activists decry evictions at St. James Park

Librarians also chained themselves inside the Occupy Toronto Library yurt when they heard about the destruction of the Occupy Wall Street Library during Bloomberg's 11/15 police raid in the middle of the night.  Protesters then made a human chain removing the books one by one in order to prevent confiscation and destruction of literature by police.

Courtesy of National Post
Photographer:  Aaron Lynette
Toronto activists form human chain to save books.

Activist Kevin Konnyu is interviewed in the youtube below by mainstream Canadian news following the eviction.  ( And winning hands down against the Tomato Heir.)  Here, youtube poster JM Zimmerman speaks to some of the librarians chained inside the Library.  Here, a Toronto attorney answers a t.v. reporter's questions about some of the legal issues raised prior to the court's decision.





In a similar U.S. case, Atlanta Constitution Journal reports that Occupy Atlanta in the U.S. is appealing a judge's decision refusing to stop Kasim Reed's eviction of protesters from Troy Davis Park and while a lawsuit was pending.   Occupy Atlanta said in a Federal court filing Wednesday they would ask the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to consider the case.
Occupy Atlanta said in the lawsuit that Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed's decision to revoke his executive order allowing protesters to stay in the park was unconstitutional.
Police on Oct. 26 arrested more than 50 people who stayed in the park after Reed revoked the order. Reed has said the decision was a necessary response to mounting safety concerns.
On Reed's "mounting safety concerns":  the Atlanta Mayor evicted peaceful demonstrators in a major, inordinately expensive police operation on the premise that activists had failed to obtain a simple permit for a peaceful concert and small generator frequently used throughout the city during sports events.

Atlanta activists also announced circulating petitions for the mayor's recall.

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