Aileen Leo's response to the Citizen Editorial on the Ottawa Witness Group

Re: "The other side of protest" (Citizen editorial, November 10)

This editorial dismisses the report of the Ottawa Witness Group on the policing of major events in Ottawa because our group is "hardly objective" since we "pretend that every demonstrator is a harmless raging granny who is set upon by police without provocation".

Our report makes no such claim.

If any protester engages in violence during demonstrations, we would expect the police to contain this individual. Unfortunately, what happened at some protests however, is that police have contained entire groups of peaceful individuals engaging in their Charter rights to freedom of expression and assembly. This should be of concern to us all.

The most serious instance of this occurred at the G-20 demonstrations in November 2001 when many peaceful protesters were subjected to physically and verbally intimidating police behaviour, arrest without charge, and other untoward actions. Despite calls for a public inquiry, neither the police nor the Police Services Board agreed. Those protesters who did file complaints were dismissed despite their experiences. In the absence of an accountable response, the Citizen Panel on Policing and the Community was formed comprised of respected community leaders. They made several recommendations and asked the police to apologize, which they have not.

This is part of the larger issue of a climate of fear, with accompanying developments such as racial profiling, the narrowing of public space for protest and the increasing criminalization of dissent (an essential part of a healthy democracy) in the wake of September 11, 2001. One need look no further than the case of Mr. Mahar Arar, a Canadian citizen, to see how this climate of fear has culminated in shocking contraventions of the human rights of a member of our community.

Our group focuses on the behaviour of police at demonstrations because some police have contravened not only the rights of peaceful protesters but also their own internal policies. As well, the complaints process is deeply flawed because it amounts to police judging themselves, a situation which community leaders such as Councillor Alex Cullen have deplored within your own newspaper. The effectiveness of the Police Services Board as a civilian overseer of police (a necessary function given the use of force) is questionable at best since, according to the Vice-Chair of the PSB, in his response to our municipal questionnaire, "the Board has no source of independent information under its control" concerning complaints against police.

The editorial also states that our report "does not acknowledge how difficult crowd control can be." This ignores the credit we give to police for their handling of anti-war demonstrations from November 2002 through March 2003. Indeed, we described the officers involved in these demonstrations as "professional, courteous, co-operative and helpful." (page 2) Regrettably, this has been offset by some police choices since April 2003, including the use of tasers against peaceful protesters.

Ironically, the police and the Police Services Board have, in a way, given birth to the Ottawa Witness Group through their refusal to apologize for untoward police behaviour and the lack of an independent third-party to judge complaints.

I invite readers to judge our report for themselves at: http://members.rogers.com/witnessgroup.

Aileen Leo
Ottawa Witness Group