Legal Research

Olympic Protesters? Legal Guide

By Simon Fodden

Lawyers Rights Watch Canada (LRWC), an organization that assists lawyers around the world who themselves defend human rights, has published a “Protesters’ Guide to the Law of Civil Disobedience in British Columbia – Olympic Edition” [PDF].

The forty-three-page guide is anything but a sketchy pamphlet for marchers on the front line; it’s a serious, accessible, and well-written handbook. Produced by Leo McGrady originally in 1970 in connection with protests against the Vietnam war, according to a story in the Globe and Mail, and updated a number of times since then, it aims to

. . . inform you of your rights when dealing with the police at public demonstrations. It is designed to help you exercise your right to engage in non- violent civil disobedience, and avoid committing any criminal offence. It is also designed to assist you in the event you are arrested.

What I find refreshing about the guide is its return to a focus on more or less classical civil disobedience, which is to say making a political point by doing what the powers-that-be don’t want you to do without necessarily breaking the criminal law — and being willing to accept the consequences of that behaviour as part of the protest.

The guide begins with a short essay on Canadian civil disobedience in recent times. It then becomes intensely practical. For example, there’s counsel about whether it’s wise to wear a mask at demonstrations, what it’s useful to bring along to a demonstration, what to do if pepper spray is used against you, and even a small section on the new “sonic guns” Vancouver police are equipped with.

A long section gives sensible advice about dealing with the police, offering information about fundamental rights and at the same time down-to-earth examples of how they might apply in various situations. There’s even a section at the end on demonstrating in the United States that provides some fairly stern warnings about how different things might be there. (And I have to say that if there’s any truth to the Boing Boing report about the treatment of Peter Watt at the US border this week, I’d build up a large defence fund and get some extra medical insurance before venturing south for anything other than the sun.)

We’ve posted on Slaw before about the Olympic Committee’s efforts to dampen and contain protests. (Just yesterday there was a report that Vancouver had ordered the removal of an anti-Olympic mural, the doctored image of which accompanies this post, under the bylaw against “graffiti.”)

There is also a recent Slaw entry on Lawyers Rights Watch Canada.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on December 12, 2009 (boomark / email).