Click on the video above to watch the slideshow ‘Day of the Torch’ by Pete Rockwell

Anti-Olympic Protestors Disrupt Torch Relay

Part Two

Police outnumbered the demonstrators. They had roof-top surveillance. Victoria Police Chief Jamie Graham was on the front lines of the entire 8 hour demonstration, saying police would use “extreme restraint”. Perhaps this was due in part to the presence of numerous BC Civil Liberties Legal Observers in orange
shirts, led by David Eby. Eby had not been in Graham’s presence since he had helped force Graham’s resignation as Vancouver’s Police Chief in 2007. Only one arrest was made: a 20 year old woman had been approached on her way to the event by numerous plainclothes officers and charged her with assaulting an officer.

First Nations activists were not in costume and looked very serious, gathered around a Mohawk Warrior Society flag. No 2010’s Gord Hill reiterated the point that most of BC is unceded territory, or without land claim settlements, hence the popular chant “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land.” The memory of First Nations elder Harriet Nahanee was invoked. It was explained that Nahanee had died as a result of her three weeks in a Surrey holding cell she where she was sentenced to for opposing Olympic related
developments. Hill called for groups across Canada to mobilize and stop the torch as it passed through their communities.

Several poverty rights groups were there, including Vancouver’s Anti-poverty committee, and Victoria’s Committee to End Homelessness. David Johnston, a homeless man recently released from a 23-day prison fast for erecting tents in the daytime, spoke along with fellow housing activist Chris Johnson about upcoming
court cases concerning the city’s declaration that homeless have a constitutionally protected right to erect tents between 9pm and 7am. At least one homeless couple living out of a shopping cart attended the demonstration’s entire 8 hour duration.

Several people shared songs they had written against the Olympics, accompanied by the band, including the Raging Grannies, and Dave and Mary Lowther who sang a song about the “Bread and Circuses” method the Romans used to placate the masses.

After more than an hour of short speeches and songs, participants competed in a mock Olympics including wrestling matches with “Gordo” and an “Olympic top cop” Bud Mercer look-alike. A Binners Olympics was held in which contestants had to collect and sort about $4 in cans and bottles from around Centennial Square using Tony’s trailers, which are like shopping carts that attach to bicycles.

After the final sport events the Annual Zombie March, which this year was billed as part of the 3 day Victoria Comic Convention, arrived as an incredible variety of corpses, swelling the crowd to 200 at lowest estimate and 500 at highest. Almost as soon as the march began it became apparent that anyone behaving too
zombie like (trying to eat people’s brains or having trouble opening doors) would be surrounded and followed by a dozen officers.

Part Three

Part One

Related Media Links

Protesters make no apologies for disrupting relay
CTV Olympics – November 3, 2009

Olympic protesters are ‘terrorists’: Bloy
Burnaby Newsleader – November 2, 2009

Protesters disrupt Olympic torch route
Ottawa Citizen – October 31, 2009

Anti-Olympic protests force 2010 torch relay to divert in Victoria
The Canadian Press – October 30, 2009

Protest disrupts Olympic torch run
Victoria News – October 30, 2009

Torch relay resumes after protest blocked route
Times Colonist – October 30, 2009

Olympic torch relay kicks off in Victoria
CBC.ca – October 30, 2009

Let the Games begin — but in peace or pain?
The Province – October 30, 2009

Infamous 1936 Olympics had bizarre torch procession
24 Hours Vancouver – October 30, 2009

‘Free speech zones’ elusive at Olympic torch relay kick-off
TheTyee.ca – ?October 28, 2009

Victoria human rights advocate denounces aggressive police and Olympic Torch spending
Vancouver Media Co-op – October 27, 2009

The Torch That Hitler Lit
Globe and Mail – October 24, 2009

NO-2010 Victoria Plans Opposing Torch Relay Celebration
C-FAX 1070 – October 20, 2009

The anti relay
National Post – October 17, 2009

Related Links

Spirit of BC Victoria

Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay

Olympic Flame Wikipedia

No2010.com

No2010 Victoria

No2010 Victoria Statement on Torch Relay Disruption

Official Vancouver 2010 Site

International Olympic Committee