The Ottawa Police resorted this Saturday to batons and a “chemical irritant” to clear the heart of the anti-vaccine truckers protest what It has blocked the center of the city for three weeks, in front of the Parliament of Canada.
In an escalation of the operation launched on Friday to unblock the center of the Canadian capital, dozens of officers equipped with batons and riot gear managed to clear much of the core of the protest, where there were far fewer protesters than the day before.
After arresting more than 100 people this Friday, agents arrested another 47 this Saturday, and seized 38 vehicles between the two days, the local police reported on their official Twitter account shortly before 1:00 p.m. (18:00 GMT).
Police admitted that he had used “a chemical irritant to stop aggressive behavior” of the demonstrators in the Parliament area, and the local CBC network stated that it could be pepper spray.
The officers managed to disperse a large area of Wellington Street, where Parliament is located, and pushed the protesters towards the perpendicular O’Connor Street, which leads to the south of the city, according to CBC.
According to newspaper The New York Times, the Police advanced truck by truck, in some cases breaking the windowss of the vehicles and pushing the demonstrators, who shouted at them: “Shame!”
Many of the trucks that remained in the area were abandoned, because most of them took their vehicles when the Police approached the street with the warning that any protester could be arrested.
One protester urged truckers to head to Quebec City, where she said there would be another “big protest,” local daily The Ottawa Citizen reported.
The Police assured that some of the demonstrators they arrested “were wearing bulletproof vests, had smoke grenades and miscellaneous pyrotechnic devices in their bags”, and that one of them “threw a gas cartridge” at the agents.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday invoked the Emergencies Act, which gives the government extraordinary powers to end protests.which began on January 29 and had spread through several border crossings with the United States.
The Emergencies Law allows the authorities to seize the protest trucks and prosecute those who travel to the capital to join the blockade, as well as impose fines and take away the driver’s licenses of anti-vaccines.
Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly resigned Tuesday after days of criticism over the inability of the body to control the blockade of more than 400 trucks and hundreds of people against the health measures against the covid-19 pandemic. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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