No One Is Illegal at the G8/G20 Mobilizations in Toronto
Joint Statement of No One Is Illegal Toronto, No One Is Illegal Vancouver,
No One Is Illegal Halifax, No One Is Illegal Montreal, No One Is Illegal
Ottawa
No Fences, No Borders!
No One Is Illegal, Canada Is Illegal!
As most of you have heard, from June 25th to 27th the world’s richest
countries (the G8 and G20) will send their poli-trickers and banking
elite, along with heads of the EU, IMF and World Bank, to meet in
Huntsville and then in Toronto. They will be talking bailouts, corporate
green-washing, and how to further deepen their own and their friends’
pockets. The G8 and G20 countries and their corporations make most of
the weapons on the planet, profit from war, subsidize oil corporations
and massive industrial projects, and are responsible for pushing millions out
of their homes each year. Migrants arriving in G20 countries are treated
as exploitable labour - fenced in to precarious work - and often living in
fear of detention and deportation.
This week, thousands will converge in Toronto to expose and challenge the
deadly policies of the G8 and the G20. No One Is Illegal, a grassroots
anti-colonial migrant justice group across Kanada with members primarily
of racialized/immigrant backgrounds, will be there! We will fight to
create a world free of the many fences and borders that divide us, and to
create communities that can live with justice and dignity. We invite our
friends and allies to join us and particularly for those who are
vulnerable (as people of colour, trans folks, non status etc) we encourage
you to form affinity groups to support each other and to stay safe.
On June 22nd, we will join our allies in the gender justice and queer
liberation movements in their fierce and creative actions grounded in the
daily lived experiences of women, queer, and trans folks to overcome
marginalization. As part of the Access without Fear campaign, we will be
demanding the right to Shelter, to Sanctuary, and to Status for all
migrant women and trans people. On June 23rd, we will gather with
environmental justice activists who are exposing institutions and
corporations responsible for the environmental and social impacts of
Canada's extractive industries at home and abroad.
On June 24th, we will stand alongside Indigenous defenders who struggle
across Turtle Island against centuries of colonial and genocidal policies
that have caused impoverishment, forced assimilation of distinct cultures,
and theft of land and resources. As non-native multiracial supporters, we
strongly believe that our movement must always be in active solidarity
with Indigenous communities.
On June 25th, we will march alongside community groups who organize
daily against the indignities and dehumanization of poverty,
discrimination, lack of inclusive services, wage-slave working
conditions, repressive immigration policies, gentrification,
environmental degradation, and police brutality. Joining struggles
against homelessness and displacement, we will march towards the fence
and will build a Tent City that will showcase the just communities we
wish to live in.
On June 26th, we will rally alongside anti war activists demanding an end
to Canadian complicity in imperialist occupations from Afghanistan to
Haiti. We will be alongside working people to oppose patriarchy, racism,
privatization, cuts to services, and exploitation of (im)migrant workers;
to demand living wages, workers control, and status for all; and to make
clear that the violence of capitalism cannot be reformed.
On June 26, we will also rise alongside anti-capitalists and radical
labour activists who are continuing towards the fence to confront the
police state and the billion dollar security apparatus that the G20
finance ministers and corporations hide behind. Just as resistance against
the border walls from Palestine to Mexico cannot be contained, our love
and rage for liberation cannot be contained. We assert: the militarized
fence - another physical and ideological symbol of global apartheid,
corporate greed, and a way to keep the elite separate from the people -
should come down.
On the evening of June 26th, we will party alongside those reclaiming the
streets, while on June 27th we will join prison abolitionists highlighting
the growing insecurity and repression of the prison and surveillance
industrial complex.
In the coming week, we encourage all our allies to join us on the streets
and unite for justice. For a world with self-determination for all
Indigenous communities; environmental justice; income equity and
community control over resources; migrant justice; gender, queer,
disability, and reproductive rights; and freedom for all oppressed
peoples. Rise in
struggle till all the walls and fences fall!
“Walls turned on their sides, are bridges.”
- Graffiti on US/Mexico border wall
www.nooneisillegal.org
* For further details on these events and information on Accessibility,
Legal, Medics, Schedule, and more:
http://g20.torontomobilize.
http://2010.mediacoop.ca/
To contribute to this site, please tag youtube, twitter and flickr posts
with #g20report.
* Independent media:
http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/
http://rabble.ca/
http://g20.torontomobilize.
http://g20.torontomobilize.
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Toronto’s Community Organizations invite you to fight back against the
fear mongering of Harper’ billion dollar security fiasco and march in
a massive demonstration on June 25th. Harper and global financial
institutions are vulnerable to the power of communities rising up and
reclaiming space – building the kind of worlds we wish to live in.
Join Us for a Tent City that highlights homelessness and migration and
creates the safe, accessible, just communities we need.
JUSTICE FOR OUR COMMUNITIES!
NO TO G8/G20! YES TO TAKING BACK OUR CITY!
Friday, June 25th, 2010
2:30pm
Allan Gardens (Carleton St. and Sherbourne St)
RALLY. MARCH. BLOCK PARTY. TENT CITY
March will be led by Women and Transfolk - http://wp.me/pVzSF-I
ASL interpretation available at rally and march.
Wheelchair accessible bus departs 2pm from Yonge and Dundas.
Buses also leaving from across Toronto: http://wp.me/sVzSF-buses.
Families and Children: http://wp.me/pVzSF-p
March is followed by AMAZING Block Party. Check out the talent:
http://wp.me/pVzSF-C
From June 25th and 27th, 2010, the world’s twenty richest countries
(the G8 and G20) will send their ruling elite, along with heads of the
IMF and World Bank, to meet in Huntsville and then in Toronto, to talk
exploitation, wealth, and greed. These ‘leaders’ have shredded the
public sector and social spending, criminalized the poor, immigrants,
disabled and racialized communities, continued to plunder Indigenous
lands and trash the environment, deported our families and friends,
gutted the unions, and closed hospitals and schools while they grant
tax cuts to the rich and corporations and boost police and military
budgets. These disgusting policies have enacted devastation around the
world and are reflected right here in Toronto.
We are the people severely impacted by this agenda: we are
Toronto-based community organizations, people of color, indigenous
people, immigrants, women, the poor, the working class, queer and
trans people, disabled people, and our allies.
We live in a city that houses the corporations that exploit and
displace people. Toronto police kills and brutalizes our communities.
Toronto housing kicks out our families. Toronto social services slam
the door on undocumented migrants. This city pushes out poor people
and attacks sex workers. Toronto exists on stolen indigenous land.
Toronto’s communities are uniting to take back what is ours! Join us
on the streets June 25, as we ensure the G20, the G8 and their deadly
policies are exposed and challenged! Rally, march, party and pitch a
tent city against Toronto and the G8/G20′s colonial, racist, sexist,
ableist, homo/transphobic and capitalist policies.
Join Us for Justice For Our Communities!
Our demands: http://wp.me/sVzSF-allout
Support Us! http://wp.me/pVzSF-E
Action expected to continue until next day. Bring sleeping bags and/or
join when you can! Constant updates on June 25th at
http://25june.wordpress.com and on twitter @g20mobilize
For other actions throughout the week, visit http://g20.torontomobilize.org
Supported by: Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, No One Is
Illegal-Toronto, LIFEMovement, Jane and Finch Action Against Poverty,
Students Against Israeli Apartheid, DAMN 2025, Women’s Coordinating
Committee Chile – Canada, No Games Toronto, South Asian Women’s Rights
Organization, Ryerson Students Union, People for Climate Justice,
International Federation of Iranian Refugees in Canada, Gender Justice
for All, Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, Not in Our Name (NION):
Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism, Gaza Freedom March, Educators for
Peace and Justice, Women in Solidarity with Palestine,
Shelter|Sanctuary|Status, Greater Toronto Workers Assembly, Health for
All, Holy Land Awareness and Action Task Group of the South West
Presbytery of Toronto Conference of the United Church of Canada
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The G8/G20 meetings took place in Ontario from June 25-27, 2010. Toronto-based organizations of women, people of colour, indigenous peoples, the poor, the working class, queer and trans people and disabled people organized a peoples convergence with 40,000 people taking to the streets, standing up for justice in collaboration and solidarity!
Activists, community members, inspired and outraged individuals came together as a movement to demand justice for people and the planet. Over a week of mobilizations, events, workshops and direct actions took place in the face of state and police repression, violence and infringements on rights and freedoms.
We must continue to mobilize and build greater solidarity among our communities- an important part of this is supporting all those arrested during the G20 summit, including our allies still in detention, and those released on bail.