- Reaction score
- 3,950
- Points
- 1,260
Feel free to share anything of interest & intrigue (within OPSEC, of course) regarding the security aspects of the coming games here.
Athletes not targets of protest: ORN
Bob Mackin, 24 Hours Vancouver News, 29 Sept 09
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Games foes to rally as torch relay kicks off
Sandra McCulloch and Katie DeRosa, Times Colonist/CanWest, 23 Sept 09
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Olympics promises don’t jibe with documents: BCCLA
Geoff Dembicki, Tyee.ca, 28 Sept 09
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Athletes not targets of protest: ORN
Bob Mackin, 24 Hours Vancouver News, 29 Sept 09
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An outspoken critic of the 2010 Winter Olympics said athletes are not the target of protesters.
"The impression is that you're against amateur sport and you're against athletes if you oppose the Olympic industry and you oppose the way that the Olympics are brought to communities around the world,” said Alissa Westergard-Thorpe of the Olympic Resistance Network. “I hope that's certainly not the impression people would get.”
Westergard-Thorpe spoke Monday in Vancouver at an Impact on Communities Coalition forum discussing the erosion of civil liberties in the Olympic city. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association said city bylaws enacted to protect Olympic sponsors from competitors are too broad because they will restrict the constitutional right to freedom of speech for the first three months of 2010.
Westergard-Thorpe said sport can be a creative means of resistance. Students against the University of B.C. hosting the 1997 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit blocked the driveway at the campus president’s mansion with street hockey games.
“Sport does not require massive, huge purpose-built stadiums and billion-dollar corporate sponsor budgets for promotions,” she said. “Sport is accessible, sport is something that everybody can do and participate and enjoy and benefit from. This should be an open, accessible thing, and if there's an intersection downtown that maybe isn't being used for what it should be, it should be probably used for sport.”....
Games foes to rally as torch relay kicks off
Sandra McCulloch and Katie DeRosa, Times Colonist/CanWest, 23 Sept 09
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Opponents of the 2010 Olympics hope to divert media attention away from the torch relay, set to begin in Victoria on Oct. 30, with a huge gathering at Centennial Square celebrating "charter freedoms."
"It's not a protest," said Zoe Blunt, spokeswoman for the "No 2010 Victoria" initiative, set to take place from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. as the Olympic torch begins its journey through the city.
"We'll celebrate the right to use public space, the right to free assembly, the right to free speech and free association" guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The event organizers promises to have clowns, a five-ring circus, shopping cart races and "poverty games," such as street hockey.
Centennial Square has not been approved by the city for Olympic protests, but Blunt said optional locations have been declined. "We said no thanks, we'd rather use this lovely square that we built with our own money for the public -- hello!" Blunt said.
Victoria police will monitor this event and any others that pop up....
Olympics promises don’t jibe with documents: BCCLA
Geoff Dembicki, Tyee.ca, 28 Sept 09
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Olympics organizers and city officials swear the 2010 Games won’t hurt free speech, but their written documents suggest otherwise, a prominent civil rights activist said Monday evening.
“If you just look at the public statements of the security forces and the city of Vancouver you would have no cause for concern around civil liberties and the Olympics,” said B.C. Civil Liberties Association executive director David Eby. “The true story is actually more complicated.”
Eby referenced several official – and publicly available – documents during a well-attended Olympics civil rights forum at Simon Fraser University’s Harbour Centre.
The city and Games organizers must ensure “no propaganda or advertising” is captured on sports broadcasts inside or outside official venues, according to Vancouver’s 2003 “Host City Contract”.
Local politicians who would distribute pamphlets during the Olympic torch relay are a “high concern” for VANOC, says a brochure mailed to every city on the route.
No demonstration or “political, religious or racial propaganda” will be allowed inside Olympics sites or venues, reads rule 51 of the IOC’s Olympic Charter....