More than 850 anti-logging protesters are arrested in Canada, making history

There’s a video from the Fairy Creek anti-logging demonstrations on Vancouver Island that shows police unleashing pepper spray at close range onto a crowd of activists. At one point, an RCMP officer rips the masks off of two women, shown clearly on the tape. Other witnesses from the scene allege even worse – that officers were kicking and dragging activists, and aiming pepper spray into their mouth, eyes and private areas.

As reporter Cherise Seucharan finds out, the avenues available to the public to hold RCMP accountable don’t seem to be working when it comes to these reports of escalating police violence at Fairy Creek. The courts, the police complaints system, and even the media have not been able to stop RCMP from acting in ways that have been condemned by experts, civil rights lawyers and by the RCMP’s own watchdog.

Recent weeks have seen increasing reports of police violence and misconduct at Fairy Creek. According to reporters, activists, and legal observers on the ground at the anti-logging demonstrations in southern Vancouver Island, the RCMP has been deploying force in their arrests of peaceful demonstrators.

One video taken on August 21 showed an RCMP officer ripping the Covid face masks off of two women, seconds before police unleashed pepper spray onto a crowd at close range.

“I screamed at him, asking what the heck he was doing and why’d you rip our masks off?” one of the women, Sharon Davies, tells Canadaland.

On this week’s episode of CANADALAND, we speak to people who describe violence they’ve experienced or witnessed at Fairy Creek, as well as to experts who explain the limits of the public’s ability to hold the RCMP to account:

"DrCaleb" said
Now who was saying we were a democracy again?

"herbie" said
Now who was saying we were a democracy again?