A Citizen Arrested On a Balcony (Canoe.ca)
Ghislain Allard | Agence QMI May 22 2012
Original French Text: http://fr.canoe.ca/infos/societe/archives/2012/05/20120522-184630.html
SHERBROOKE - Police officers in Sherbrooke have arrested a man who was too loudly supporting the student cause from a balcony.
Friday night, during a protest that began very peacefully, the Sherbrooke police force proceeded to arrest several people, mainly on Magog Street, in the city center. The police notably took into custody bystanders who they believed were encouraging the students in their approach [to the conflict].
A YouTube video captured this wave of robust arrests. At one point, a citizen can be seen chanting slogans that are unfavorable to the Charest government from a balcony. “Don’t give up, students, he cried. You are right, you aren’t fifty. This is filthy!”
Another resident can be seen upon his return from work interrogating the police about the fundamental rights at play in this kind of situation. “When the protest is illegal, the charter of rights does not apply”, answered the officer.
Several minutes later, two officers proceeded to arrest the man who had been yelling from his balcony on Magog Street.
When he asked about the grounds for his arrest, they answered “Municipal by-law”.
Several other officers joined the two who had made the arrest and threw him violently to the ground. “That man didn’t do a thing”, protested the neighbor.
The video stops there because an officer forced the amateur videographer to go about her way if she didn’t wish to be arrested.
“We can’t see everything on the video, it’s a guy who was yelling at the top of his lungs, replied the Sherbrooke police department spokesperson. Before the beginning of the video, he insulted the officers. He is not a resident of that home.”
Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.
*Translating the printemps érable is a volunteer collective attempting to balance the English media’s extremely poor coverage of the student conflict in Québec by translating media that has been published in French into English. These are amateur translations; we have done our best to translate these pieces fairly and coherently, but the final texts may still leave something to be desired. If you find any important errors in any of these texts, we would be very grateful if you would share them with us at translatingtheprintempsderable@gmail.com. Please read and distribute these texts in the spirit in which they were intended; that of solidarity and the sharing of information.
