FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Vancouver, BC / unceded Coast Salish Territories – The BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) is calling for a review of a police action that led to the shutdown of the June 29 Peace and Unity Festival organized by the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights, Migrante Alberta, and the Memoria Viva Society of Edmonton. The letter to the Professional Standards Branch of the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) follows community reports that the EPS arrived at the site of the Festival in overwhelming numbers before the scheduled performance of a children’s Palestinian traditional dance troupe, where they supported the Festival’s landlord in demanding that Palestinian vendors, Palestinian flags, and Palestinian and Jewish performers be excluded from the Festival.

The EPS’s facilitation of private censorship is out of keeping with its duty to uphold the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A statement from the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights shows  that the demands made, in the view of festival organizers, would require the festival to discriminate contrary to applicable human rights legislation. These actions undermined Charter protections for freedom of expression and equality and the Charter’s purpose of protecting the expression and rights of minority groups, as well as the ability to express unpopular views.

It is deeply concerning that these disproportionate police actions were taken at the behest of private individuals against a multicultural community festival. The BCCLA hopes that the EPS will examine their actions closely so that similar police overreach will not reoccur.

Aislin Jackson, Policy Staff Counsel for the BCCLA