Montreal police arrest 84 after talks with student protestors

2012-05-29 · first published in marxsite · 170 words

This was not a Socialist Resistance publication. marxsite was Phil Hearse’s own long-form site, run alongside the paper he helped edit. It is kept here with his agreement, recovered from the Internet Archive after the domain lapsed and was taken over by someone else; nothing here links to the address it now points at.

Only part of this piece survives. The capture it was recovered from is truncated, so the text below stops before the article did.

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MONTREAL — Riot police moved in during a Quebec City protest Monday night and arrested 84 people. Among those detained was Philippe Lapointe, chief negotiator for hardline student group CLASSE.

Also among those arrested was a protest mascot in a banana costume who waved to the applauding crowd as he was dragged away by two officers.

Student representatives arrived in Quebec City for their first face-to-face meeting with government officials since mid-May. Eight hours later, they quietly ended for the night and will resume at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

Talks between student leaders and the government broke off two weeks ago when the Liberals tabled emergency legislation aimed at controlling the protests. The move appears to have backfired, however. Festive and largely peaceful demonstrations have spread to other cities — in some cases even outside Quebec and Canada. After the meeting with Education Minister Michelle Courchesne, the head of the group representing students didn’t comment or provide any indication if progress had been made, honouring a confidentiality agreement with the government.