HFX Cops: Hands Off the Poor! : IMC Maritimes

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HFX Cops: Hands Off the Poor!
Take the streets against the criminalization of poverty!

WHEN: Tuesday, Aug. 1st- 4:00pm

WHERE: Meet at the North Branch Memorial Library (2285 Gottingen Street)
Then on to the Gottingen Street Police Station and City Hall

WHAT: A street march against police harassment, brutality and
discrimination against poor people.

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Background:

The criminalization of poor people is not a new phenomenon. Yet recently,
reports from street people who panhandle, squeegee and/or sleep on the
streets confirm that the cops have stepped up their unofficial campaign of
criminalization during the spring and summer of 2006. Police have been
disproportionately enforcing city by-laws around loitering, jaywalking and
being possession of unregistered dogs. The fines that result from this
enforcement prevent low-income people from providing for themselves.
People are being banned from public spaces through the Protection of
Property Act, preventing them from getting income they rely on through
panhandling or squeegeeing.

Since HCAP began to plan this action we have been approached by different
communities who face police repression. What began as a
panhandler/squeegeer-centric action is broadening to include
representation from the sex worker community and black community in and
around Uniake Square.

Please join us in this important and unifying action to hold the Halifax
Regional Police and the Halifax Regional Council accountable.

For more info please contact the Halifax Coalition Against Poverty.

This is interesting.. we've noticed the same sort of behavior in Fredericton. Mostly on the poor, but also on demonstrations.

I lived on the streets in Halifax in the summer of 2004.
I was actually impressed by the way I was treated. Better than it is in some other western provinces. The police came over because people called the cops because we were smoking pot. But the officer just did a check on our names and told us that if we had homes, he knew that we would get high there. But since that was not the case, he asked us to please not get high in public.