{"id":293,"date":"2009-01-30T08:00:13","date_gmt":"2009-01-30T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/optative.net\/blog\/?p=293"},"modified":"2016-08-21T04:40:38","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T09:40:38","slug":"bal-masque-masquerade-ball-challenges-montreals-anti-mask-bylaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/optative.net\/blog\/bal-masque-masquerade-ball-challenges-montreals-anti-mask-bylaw\/","title":{"rendered":"Bal Masqu\u00e9 un grand succ\u00c3\u00a8s!!! Theatrical Masquerade Ball challenges Montreal’s anti-mask bylaw"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday night over 50 masked protesters descended on City Hall for a Masquerade Ball protest \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Bal Masqu\u00e9<\/em>. Organized by an ad hoc<\/em> collective known as Le Gros Bon Sens<\/em><\/a>, the masked demonstration aimed to challenge the anti-mask bylaw<\/a> the City of Montreal is attempting to pass as part of its larger “Public Security” portfolio, which now also includes a new bylaw against “insulting a police officer”.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Masked activists at the Bal Masqu\u00e9<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Bal Masqu\u00e9<\/em> was playful, highly theatrical and extremely peaceful, as masked activists mingled, cavorted\u00a0and danced at the entrance of City Hall. Before long, a dramatic performance, courtesy of the infringement festival<\/a>, unfolded on the steps of City Hall. The scene began when two actors playing satirical\u00a0masked “police officers”, one wearing a gas mask and the other a riot helmet, arrived to survey the protest and attempt to intimidate\u00a0activists wearing masks at the Bal Masqu\u00e9<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Masked “Riot cop” protests\u00a0Drama Masks<\/strong><\/p>\n

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“Gas mask cop” against Charter Section 2B<\/strong><\/p>\n

The “riot cop” soon announced the arrival of the Mayor of Montreal \u00e2\u20ac\u201c M. Le Maire<\/em> Gerald Tremblay. Ducking insults (and snowballs!), an actor with a large Tremblay mask appeared and delivered a mock “press conference” about the dangers of masks.<\/p>\n

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“Mayor Tremblay”: masks are dangerous<\/strong><\/p>\n

The “Mayor” then claimed that “all masks are now illegal”, and his security detail of masked “police officers”\u00a0blew whistles and\u00a0warned the masked protesters to unmask or face “arrest”.<\/p>\n

Following the carnivalesque\u00a0performance, dozens of masked protesters entered City Hall where real police officers told them to unmask, then go sit in a room to watch the proceedings on a Television. While many of the protesters left at this point \u00e2\u20ac\u201c what could be more disempowering than having to watch the end of our Charter right to Freedom of Expression in a separate room on a TV? \u00e2\u20ac\u201c some of them did stay on. According to La Presse<\/a>, five of the protesters were forcibly evicted by police. What happened inside the meeting is the subject of much speculation, although a copy of the bylaw<\/a> has now been released, revealling that mask-wearing\u00a0will soon\u00a0be punishable with\u00a0a $100 – $300 fine for the first offence.<\/p>\n

Here is a video of what happened, courtesy of Guerilla Video Productions<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, most corporate media decided to focus on the police, the riots they faced in 2008, and the mayor’s latest cabinet shuffle – instead of the theatre activists, their Masquerade Ball, and critical message that our civil liberties are under threat. Overall,\u00a0quite a lot\u00a0of the corporate media used images from past conflicts, such as burning police cars or the aftermath of riots, instead of\u00a0employing images from the Masquerade Ball.<\/p>\n

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CTV News used<\/strong> old “riot damage”\u00a0image <\/strong><\/p>\n

The Montreal Gazette<\/a>, despite trumpeting the cause<\/a> over the last week in Opinion columns, letters to the editor, and an editorial, only ran a tiny article on the protest (“Group unmasked”, Tuesday, January 27, 2009, A3) that ignored the masquerade-theatre, and focused instead on the police’s authority. Paraphrasing Chief Inspector Paul Chablo, The Gazette reported: “the regulation would be applied only at the kind of protests that have a history of turning violent, including spontaneous street gatherings following Canadiens playoff victories, an annual May Day protest and an annual protest against police brutality.” No explanations\u00a0were offered about who <\/em>would decide which masks and demonstrations would be\u00a0under scrutiny, nor whether officers could apply the bylaw indiscriminately.<\/p>\n

The next meeting at City Hall is in one month, presumably on February 23rd. It is quite likely that the City will try and pass the bylaw, although there is bound to be strong opposition.<\/p>\n

Organizers of the Bal Masqu\u00e9, Le Gros Bon Sens, promise more dramatic resistance. Porte-parole Jules Merveille made a pointed critique against the proposed bylaw in Le Devoir<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00abCette mesure est anticonstitutionnelle \u00e9tant donn\u00e9 que tout individu a la libert\u00e9 fondamentale de se cacher dans un regroupement et de ne pas d\u00e9voiler son identit\u00e9, sauf en cas d’arrestation bien s\u00c3\u00bbr. Nous trouvons cette mesure absurde\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n

Le Gros Bon Sens<\/em> have declared that the fight isn’t over yet on their facebook page: “Le combat n’est pas termin\u00e9 !”<\/em><\/p>\n

On the more “official” political front, Projet Montreal<\/a> leader Richard Bergeron announced his party’s total disapproval of the bylaw in 24 Heures<\/a> newspaper:<\/p>\n

\u00ab les manifestants qui contreviennent \u00c3\u00a0 la loi, qu’ils soient masqu\u00e9s ou non, devraient \u00c3\u00aatre arr\u00c3\u00aat\u00e9s sur le champ. Mais compromettre la libert\u00e9 d’expression en donnant le droit \u00c3\u00a0 la police d’arr\u00c3\u00aater les gens uniquement sur la base de la fa\u00c3\u00a7on dont ils sont habill\u00e9s ne peut que d\u00e9t\u00e9riorer les relations entre la police et le grand public \u00bb.<\/em><\/p>\n

From a legal perspective, perhaps the best hope for protecting Charter rights, civil liberties lawyer Julius Grey suggested on CTV News<\/a>: “The bylaw clearly would violate Freedom of Expression because you can’t dissociate the freedom of expression from the way in which it is expressed.” In the Toronto Star<\/a> Grey elaborated:<\/p>\n

“There is nothing more perilous than giving discretion to the police\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 To decide which protest is acceptable and which is not is as unseemly as police deciding which newspaper is acceptable, and which one is not…They are there to carry out the law, not to determine its content\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6They shouldn’t be given discretion to violate freedom of expression.”<\/p>\n

If\u00a0you want to protect your Constitutional right to Freedom of Expression, stay tuned to the OTL Blog\u00a0and keep updated as this story unfolds. If you want to participate in the next round of theatre activism at the\u00a0February City Hall Meeting, or help organize, please contact otl@optative.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday night over 50 masked protesters descended on City Hall for a Masquerade Ball protest \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Bal Masqu\u00e9. Organized by an ad hoc collective known as Le Gros Bon Sens, the masked demonstration aimed to challenge the anti-mask bylaw the City of Montreal is attempting to pass as part of its larger “Public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,36,5,118,4],"tags":[140,143,145,84,141,142,9,144,114],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community-issues","category-culture-jams","category-performance","category-video","tag-bal-masque","tag-freedom-of-expression","tag-gerald-tremblay","tag-infringement-festival","tag-julius-grey","tag-le-gros-bon-sens","tag-optative-theatrical-laboratories","tag-projet-montreal","tag-theatre-activism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/optative.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/optative.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/optative.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optative.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optative.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/optative.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"https:\/\/optative.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/optative.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optative.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optative.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}