ORN Updates

Community Notice: Targeting of Anti-Olympics Movement. Approximately 15 VISU Joint Intelligence Group Visits in 48 hours

Between the afternoon of June 3 till June 5, 2009, approximately 15 anti-Olympics activists were visited by Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit (VISU) Joint Intelligence Group officers. Surprise visits by plain-clothes officers included home visits, work place visits, persistent phone calls, and intimidation of family members and neighbours. The patterns of visits reveal that VISU has clearly been spying on activists and making note of daily routines. In one case, an organizer was stopped on the road near the skytrain he uses daily on his way to work and followed into the packed station where VISU very publicly identified themselves and him. In some cases, the officers would not leave when activists refused to speak with them and demanded that they leave.

Targetting of Anti-Olympics Movement: What To Do When Police & Spies Come Knocking

Since 2007, police & intelligence agencies have targetted anti-2010 Olympics opposition as a 'security threat' to the Games.  This has included media articles based on reports from CSIS and police specifically mentioning Indigenous and other social movements in Vancouver.  Police have publicly stated their need to increase surveillance of anti-2010 resistance. Beginning in 2008, CSIS and police also began attempts to recruit informants and gather information through interviews with people organizing anti-2010 resistance, or with people indirectly associated with our movement.

ALL OUT FOR ANTI OLYMPICS CONVERGENCE – FEB 2010!!!

The 2010 Winter Olympics will take place on unceded indigenous land from February 12-28 2010. Far from being simply about ‘sport’, the history of the Olympics is one rooted in displacement, corporate greed, fascism, repression, and violence. Only the political and corporate elite – from real estate developers to security corporations – have anything to gain from the Olympics industry. The effects of the upcoming Winter Games have already manifested themselves- with the expansion of sport tourism and resource extraction on indigenous lands; increasing homelessness and gentrification of poor neighbourhoods; increasing privatization of public services; union busting through imposed contracts and exploitative conditions especially for migrant labour; the fortification of the national security apparatus; ballooning public spending and public debt; and unprecedented destruction of the environment.