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Latest news regarding the Kinder Morgran protests: dozens of civil contempt charges were dismissed Thursday evening involving activists who were arrested while protesting against the major pipeline project on Burnaby Mountain.
Photo Credit: Beyond Boarding Facebook
The ruling is in conjunction to the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association's accusation that the RCMP may have conducted a number of unlawful arrests on Burnaby Mountain. The accusation was based on the grounds that RCMP were arresting demonstrators for entering an “exclusion zone” that extended beyond the boundaries of the court's original injunction.
“The RCMP made an unacceptable mess of this injunction, improperly arresting nearly 100 people. Today the court has cleaned up the mess. The RCMP arrested demonstrators for violating the court’s order when those people hadn’t crossed the line. Some of these people were deprived of their liberty over an entire weekend. The court made clear that the police had no authority do to that. This is a victory for the constitutional right of people to demonstrate and to express themselves,” stated Josh Paterson, Executive Director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
In addition, B.C. courts rejected Kinder Morgan's request to expand, and extend, the original injunction earlier this afternoon.
“We have argued publicly that there was no compelling legal justification to further infringe people’s constitutional rights on Burnaby Mountain and the court has agreed,” added Paterson.
For the previous article on this story, click here.
Photo Credit: Beyond Boarding Facebook
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