Canadian police on Thursday began arresting leaders of a trucker-led protest that has choked Ottawa’s streets for three weeks and provoked the Canadian government into calling on rarely used emergency powers.
A video posted to the Twitter account of the so-called “freedom convoy” showed Tamara Lich, one of the organizers, being taken into police custody on Thursday night.
The earlier arrest of another leader, Chris Barber, was also captured in a video shared on the same account.
Photo: AFP
The convoy had started with truckers protesting against mandatory COVID-19 vaccines, but its demands have grown to include an end to all pandemic restrictions and, for many, a wider anti-establishment agenda.
At its peak, the movement also included blockades of half-a-dozen US-Canada border crossings — including the key route between Windsor, Canada, and Detroit, Michigan.
Earlier on Thursday, Lich posted a tearful video in which she said that she was expecting to be arrested.
She called on supporters to flood Ottawa, saying that truckers in the capital “are gonna stay and fight for your freedom.”
“If you can come to Ottawa and stand with us, that would be fantastic,” she said.
However, Ottawa Police Chief Steve Bell said that access to downtown Ottawa would be restricted to prevent people joining the demonstration, and he warned of “imminent” action against those already there.
“I implore anyone that’s there: Get in your truck ... and leave our city streets,” Bell told reporters.
Criticized for failing to act decisively, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week invoked the Emergencies Act, which gives the government sweeping powers to deal with a major crisis.
It is only the second time such powers have been invoked in peacetime.
Police were deployed in force into the area around the Canadian parliament, where hundreds of big rigs remained parked.
“We’ve begun to harden the perimeter around the protests,” Bell said. “What I can tell you is this weekend will look very different than the past three weekends.”
Trudeau defended his decision to resort to the Emergencies Act, saying that the act was not being used to call in the military and denied restricting freedom of expression.
The objective was simply to “deal with the current threat and to get the situation fully under control,” he told the Canadian House of Commons. “Illegal blockades and occupations are not peaceful protests... They have to stop.”
Canadian Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino said the situation in Ottawa was “precarious.”
The demonstrators were late on Wednesday given an ultimatum to leave or risk arrest and truck seizures.
In a statement, Bell pledged “to take back the entirety of the downtown core and every occupied space,” while warning that “some of the techniques we are lawfully able and prepared to use are not what we are used to seeing in Ottawa.”
Truckers responded by blaring horns, waving Canadian national flags on the ends of hockey sticks, and chanting “Freedom.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
OPTIONS: Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having J.D. Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: ‘That’s one,’ among others US President Donald Trump on Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029. “There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term
RSS