- For immediate release-
More Than 5,000 People Came Out for Anti-Capitalist May Day!
Anti-capitalist demonstration brutally dispersed by SPVM guard dogs
Montréal, May 1st, 2012 – Today, answering the call of the Anti-Capitalist Convergence (CLAC-Montréal) and its allies, for the fifth year running, more than 5,000 people — a record turnout— joined together in downtown Montreal to celebrate International Workers' Day. A diverse array of contingents (queers, feminists, migrants, students, and families) answered CLAC's call, showing the growing reach of the anticapitalist perspective.
“May 1st is a chance for workers across the world to take back their voice, take back their power, and make themselves heard loud and clear as a class, as well as celebrate the long international history of labour struggles,” explains Mathieu Francoeur, CLAC spokesperson. “It’s also a chance to celebrate a legacy of confrontational, revolutionary, and explicitly anti-capitalist working-class culture.”
These days, every single reason to revolt is legitimate: the aggressive diktats of austerity; the massive layoffs and lock-outs; the decrees and injunctions; the misappropriation of pension funds and the dismantlement of social benefits; the massive bank bailouts; the privatization of profits and the socialization of costs; the trampling of fundamental rights, the police brutality and the repression of social movements; the impunity and crooked deals; the political corruption, white collar crime and blatant collusion at all levels. The current moment is defined by rampant injustice and increasing inequality.
“We reject the capitalist system and its institutions in their entirety. The reforms and accommodations clearly aren’t working,” said Marie-Eve Lamy for CLAC. “Today we have seen once again that when we criticize the status quo, when we attack the sources of injustice, the powers that be respond with violence. All true dissidence faces repression.” The CLAC strongly denounces the arrest of over fifty people at today's demonstration.
Today our march stopped in front of several major symbols of the capitalist system: notorious engineering firm and infamous war profiteers SNC Lavalin, currently being investigated for embezzlement, whose crooked CEO Pierre Duhaime has taken the money and run in all impunity; the various financial institutions that dot the Montreal downtown landscape, who have received $114 Billion in bailout money. The Conservative government was also strongly denounced for its racist, sexist, antisocial policies.
This May Day, the CLAC wishes to reaffirm its solidarity with all the movements of resistance struggling against austerity measures here and across the world, and particularly with the extraordinary struggle of the Quebec student movement, which has been showing the world what a strong, united mass social movement looks like.
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Contact:
Montréal Anti-Capitalist Convergence (CLAC-Montréal) : 438-838-8498
media@clac-montreal.net
www.clac-montreal.net
