Canadian police start arresting protesters in Ottawa

OTTAWA, Ontario — Police started arresting protesters Friday in a bid to interrupt the three-week, traffic-snarling siege of Canada’s capital by lots of of truckers offended over the nation’s COVID-19 restrictions.

Officers had been seen going door to door alongside a line of vans, campers and different autos parked on Ottawa’s snow-covered streets.

Some protesters surrendered and had been taken into custody, police stated. Some had been led away in handcuffs. One particular person being taken away carried an indication that learn “Mandate Freedom.”

Most of the truckers remained defiant.

“Freedom was by no means free,” stated trucker Kevin Homaund, of Montreal. “So what in the event that they put {the handcuffs} on us and so they put us in jail?”

Police made their first transfer to finish the occupation late Thursday with the arrest of two key protest leaders. Additionally they sealed off a lot of the downtown space to outsiders to stop them from coming to the help of the self-styled Freedom Convoy protesters.

The capital represented the motion’s final stronghold after three weeks of demonstrations and blockades that shut down border crossings into the U.S., prompted financial injury to each international locations and created a political disaster for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Additionally they shook Canada’s fame for civility, with some foes of the unrest blaming the affect of the USA.

Over the previous weeks, authorities had hesitated to maneuver towards lots of the protesters across the nation, partly for concern of violence. The demonstrations have drawn right-wing extremists and veterans, a few of them armed.

With police and the federal government dealing with accusations that they let the protests acquire power and unfold, Trudeau on Monday invoked Canada’s Emergencies Act, giving regulation enforcement extraordinary authority to declare the blockades unlawful, tow away vans, arrest the drivers, droop their licenses and freeze their financial institution accounts.

Ottawa police made it clear on Thursday they had been getting ready to finish the protest and take away the greater than 300 vans, with the town’s interim police chief warning: “Motion is imminent.”

The operation Friday in Ottawa started within the morning with police methodically arresting protesters a number of blocks from Parliament Hill, the guts of protest zone, the place vans had been parked shoulder to shoulder. Some officers carried automated weapons and wore tactical unit uniforms.

The 2 protest leaders underneath arrest had been due in courtroom Friday. Among the many fees: mischief and obstructing police.

The bumper-to-bumper occupation infuriated many Ottawa residents, who complained of being harassed and intimidated on the streets and obtained a courtroom injunction to cease the truckers’ incessant honking of their horns.

The demonstrations across the nation by protesters in vans, tractors and motor properties initially targeted on Canada’s vaccine requirement for truckers getting into the nation however quickly morphed right into a broad assault on COVID-19 precautions and Trudeau’s authorities.

The most important border blockade, on the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, disrupted the stream of auto elements between the 2 international locations and compelled the trade to curtail manufacturing. Authorities lifted the siege final weekend after arresting dozens of protesters.

The ultimate border blockade, in Manitoba, throughout from North Dakota, ended peacefully on Wednesday.

The protests have been cheered on and acquired donations from conservatives within the U.S.

———

Gillies reported from Toronto.