YUFA
Free Speech
YUFA Member Counters Press Account of Anti-Bush Rally
28 Jan 05 – In response to The Toronto Star's coverage, a YUFA member has written the following eyewitness account.
To Editor, Toronto Star.
Re - "Three Officers Hurt in York U Protest" Toronto Star, January 21, 2005.
Dear Sir,
As a direct eyewitness to the incident, which took place on the York campus yesterday, I read your account with incredulity. I witnessed at close quarters, namely 2-3 feet, the actions of members of the OPP in attempting to break up a student rally in Vari Hall. A group of approximately 50 students assembled in the middle of the hall for a peaceful political meeting. They were surrounded by several hundred other students as onlookers. In one corner of the hall were some 6 members of the Toronto police. When the students did not disperse, the police fanned out around them and started pushing and grabbing some of the students. Whatever violence occurred was clearly instigated by the police. They hauled out one student right in front of me. Two policemen held him down while a third repeatedly punched the prone student who was hauled to his feet, handcuffed and lead away. Several students recorded these events on video cameras, which will put the lie to the account published in your paper.
It may come as a surprise to the taxpayers of Ontario who have invested many billions of dollars in York University that the current Administration has declared it to be "private property". Consequently they reserve the right to declare whomever they see fit as guilty of trespass and can call in the police to remove them. If York University is "private property"- who owns it?
Who was trespassing on the York campus? Surely not fee paying students who, one assumes, have every right to be there and to hold peaceful meetings if they so choose. Who called in members of the police force? What law was being broken? The York Administration demands that permits be issued for on campus events. Is it a violation of a federal or provincial law if a meeting is held without a permit?
This regrettable event plus the recent attempted expulsion of Daniel Freeman-Malloy for three years for addressing a student meeting with a megaphone is, I regret to say, rapidly eroding York's reputation as a liberal and tolerant institution.
Stanley Jeffers, Associate Professor,
Department of Physics and Astronomy,
York University