Vancouver 2010: Protests *Updated (Video)*
Some pictures from yesterday’s protest in Vancouver. It started outside the Vancouver Art Gallery and eventually wound its way to B.C. Place for the opening ceremonies. I was otherwise preoccupied during the protests this morning, but for some of that, be sure to take out this great set. Update after the jump.
As noted above and below in the comments, today’s protest was less gentile. Here’s some video c/o Vancouver Media Co-op:
Seven people were later arrested after the cops made a stand further down West Georgia Street as the march was heading for the Westin Bayshore, the temporary home of IOC officials. From the Vancouver Sun:
The most visible damage to property were the smashed and paint-streaked windows of The Bay on West Georgia Street. Protests dumped red paint, swung hammers and threw newspaper boxes at the window displays featuring the official Canadian Olympic gear.
“I believe that everybody has the right to protest and it’s unfortunate that property gets damaged by some of the protesters,” said Rich Gorman, the regional vice-president of The Bay.
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Hey Colin, did you see this?
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/13/sports/AP-OLY-OlympicProtest.html
Yeah… like I said, I was elsewhere downtown, unfortunately so I couldn’t get any shots. There are more protests scheduled… it’ll continue.
In response to another comment. See in context »Hi, Colin. Those are my photos you linked to at the top.
If you check the link again, I’ve added a new post with 40 images from today’s protests that turned into a vandalizing riot.
http://www.shotinvancouver.com/vancouver/olympics/vancouver-olympics-protests-turn-violent-and-destructive-multiple-arrests-made/
In response to another comment. See in context »They’re good – nice work.
In response to another comment. See in context »Although, ‘turned into’? From what I could tell, and judging by the pre-march word, it was most likely always designed to involve vandalism…
I would agree with this. Though with the purposeful disorganization of today’s protest, I wouldn’t call anything planned. The organizing group’s policy was to not police anyone’s chosen form of protest. All groups supporting dissent against the Olympics were invited so to blame it on one group, or to group today’s and yesterday’s protesters together, is a simplification.
In response to another comment. See in context »Oh, absolutely. I know these guys. I used to have to deal with them when I was putting together protests at Greenpeace. There is a small group of “protesters” who aren’t really there to protest anything at all; they’re just there to fuck things up and combine wilding with a sense of bourgeois smugness.
The media is over-hyping the protests to an irresponsible degree. Yesterday during the opening ceremonies, CTV reported 25,000 protesters outside. My friends, who are non-alarmists and seniors, were there and told me that there were perhaps 500 people; this was corroborated by other accounts on Twitter.
Of course, it suits VANOC’s control freakery to have people frightened of scary, scary protesters, but the reality is that outside of these black-clad punks, we’re really talking about a lot of peaceful people.
Apparently the CTV camera crews caught the violent ones getting their pseudo-ninja gear on today, meaning they caught their faces on camera. The report I hear said they looked panicked.
In response to another comment. See in context »