Freedom Convoy protests continue in Canada, France and New Zealand – three countries where extreme responses to Covid have persisted for two years and where the unvaccinated are particularly targeted with restrictions.
In Canada, trucks have now cleared the Ambassador Bridge after blocking the busiest border crossing between the U.S. and Canada for nearly six days. However, protests continue in Ottawa for the third weekend in a row. MailOnline has more.
Hundreds of people waving Canadian flags and holding anti-Trudeau signs braved the snow and cold temperatures Saturday as they filled the downtown area of the, walking between massive trucks that have been parked in place for weeks, paralysing the Canadian capital.
In Windsor, as the vehicles moved out, a handful of people who remained near the entrance of the bridge gradually grew and as of 1pm had turned into a large crowd of people who refused to leave. Police in black uniforms with yellow safety vests formed a line between the bridge and the crowd and have been steadily pushing back the demonstrators, as some shouted “shame”, “freedom” and “you’re on the wrong side”.
Windsor Police stated on Twitter around 11am that they could begin making arrests if protesters continued to block traffic.
“Enforcement continuing, individuals who are located within the demonstration area are subject to arrest,” the Windsor police wrote. “People are advised to immediately vacate the area.”
While the trucks and vehicles had exited the bridge, both directions still appeared to be closed off to traffic as of Saturday afternoon.
Police descended on the scene around 8:30am Saturday, warning protesters to “act lawfully” after the Freedom Convoy truckers in Canada ignored two deadlines overnight.
The ‘Freedom Convoy’ protests, which began in Ottawa by Canadian truckers opposing a vaccinate-or-quarantine mandate for cross-border drivers, entered its 16th day on Saturday. The demonstrations are also an outpouring of fury toward Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Protests spread to three border points earlier this week, including the Ambassador Bridge, North America’s busiest land border crossing where dozens of vehicles crowded the area since Monday, choking the supply chain for Detroit’s carmakers.
UPDATE: It’s reported that protestors have returned and been seen blocking the bridge again on Saturday night.
In Paris, riot police tear-gassed diners at restaurants as protesters clashed during violent demonstrations against Covid restrictions and energy price rises. MailOnline has more.
Families with children had to cover their faces with their mandatory Covid masks as they fled from tear gas in cafés on the streets of the French capital.
Paris has been brought to a halt with police also using baton charges on demonstrators making a Canadian-style ‘Freedom Convoy’ protest, defying a ban by authorities aiming to stop a blockade of the city.
Despite the presence of some 7,000 officers on the streets and armoured cars, Paris’s most famous roundabout – the Étoile (Star) around the Arc de Triomphe – was gridlocked by early afternoon as arrests were made.
An officer at the scene said: “Unauthorised demonstrators are using their vehicles to block the traffic, and they are being supported by others without vehicles. Everything is being done to prevent this unauthorised demonstration from continuing.”
Earlier in the day, police intercepted at least five convoys attempting to enter the capital and handed tickets to more than 200 motorists.
Protesters were detained amid a seizure of bladed weapons, slingshots and gas masks in one central Parisian square.
There were 54 arrests in Paris alone on Saturday, most for public order offences connected to the Freedom Convoys.
Trouble continued well into Saturday night, as protesters continued to confront the police all over the city.
By 8pm, police were still using tear gas canisters in areas including the Champs-Elysees.
In New Zealand, authorities have been struggling to shift protestors camped outside parliament in Wellington and have been trying different tactics, including bizarre ones like playing Barry Manilow and turning on sprinklers. MailOnline has more.
New Zealand authorities blasted Barry Manilow and turned on water sprinklers in an attempt to to disperse coronavirus vaccine protesters camped outside parliament.
Initial moves to try and flush out several hundred protesters who have been camped on the grounds in Wellington since Tuesday had little effect.
The protesters, who have been voicing their opposition to coronavirus vaccine requirements, responded to the soaking from the sprinklers by digging trenches and installing makeshift drainpipes to divert the water.
When a downpour struck on Saturday, their numbers only grew.
Protesters brought in bales of straw, which they scattered on the increasingly sodden grounds at parliament.
Some shouted, others danced and one group performed an Indigenous Maori haka.
By evening, parliament speaker Trevor Mallard had come up with a new plan to make the protesters uncomfortable: using a sound system to blast out vaccine messages, Barry Manilow songs and the 1990s hit Macarena on a repeat loop.
Protesters responded by playing their own tunes, including Twister Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It.
The protest began when a convoy of trucks and cars drove to parliament from around the nation, inspired by similar demonstrations in Canada.
At first there were more than 1,000 protesters but that number dwindled as the week wore on before growing again on Saturday.
Police have been taking a more hands-off approach since Thursday, when they arrested 122 people and charged many of them with trespassing or obstruction.
Officers who have been wearing protective vests but have not been using riot gear or carrying guns, had tried to slowly advance on the protesters.
That tactic resulted in a number of physical confrontations. A video of two female officers briefly dragging a naked woman by her hair from a scuffle went viral.
In a response to questions from The Associated Press, New Zealand police said they did not remove the woman’s clothing as some people had claimed online, and that she had been naked for “some time” before her arrest.
Police also said the images and videos did not provide the full context of the protest activity or the situation that police faced.
However, the scuffles seemed to prompt a strategic rethink by police, who appeared more content to wait it out as the week wore on.
Watch footage here.
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“Health Service bosses are now considering introducing a minimum age of seven…”
So that’s that sorted, then. Phew. Six, I didn’t have a clue. But once I had completed my seventh revolution of the Sun, I knew exactly what I was and what I wanted, even if it meant one plus one equalled four hundred and eight point three nine.
Remember, folks, they know what is best for your children, and if you are at all doubtful about or – heaven forbid! – refuse their offers of groundbreaking surgery, you are a very baaaaad parent.
I went into elementary school at seven and that was certainly before I recognized girls and boys as different kinds of human beings. This started to develop from my 3rd/ 4th year onwards (in Germany, elementary school – Grundschule – is four years).
Marcus A. Shades of Seutonious’ writing on your countryman who got up to mischief with juniors 150 years before your time. Tiberius would have been supportive of the Tavistock activities.
Instead of raising the minimum age for these referrals to seven, why not set up a mental health unit for parents who believe that children are somehow born into bodies, ie, come into being in some supernatural way after a complete body has developed by cell division starting from a fertilized egg and been born in the natural way which apparently didn’t yet contain ‘a child’? How can the child be materially different from the body and where did it come from if it isn’t part of what the this particular fertilized egg grew into naturally?
This is such an outrageous nonsense that it’s really hard to understand how people can fail to recognize this as the kind of science-jargon loaded religious creed it is.
Obviously religious people will say that a child’s soul entered the body at some point between conception and birth. If this is the case then at the very least God took His eye off the ball when he allowed a soul to enter the ‘wrong’ body.
Christian people will say that. But the Christian God is said to be merciful and just thus, wouldn’t pair souls with wrong bodies just for the joy of witnessing them suffer. But the transsexualists are not Christans, the official name of their religion is The Science™ and they claim that it really isn’t one despite it clearly (see above) is. What they have on offer is a demon or beast god seeking to torment humans for the fun of it. Seen from a Christian perspective, they’re Satan worshippers who claim that God doesn’t exist.
So, why precisely are Satan worshippers allowed to proselytize among children from kindergarten onwards with the intent to harm them?
My boy when 2 insisted on playing with a toy pink pushchair belonging to a friends little girl, we bought him one, we never considered he was in the wrong sex, I dread to think what would happen now. He is 30 now and very obviously male, and still enjoys fancy dress parties. The people who are behind this evil are using children to fill a gap in their own lives and mental health problems.
KIds may think they know what they want, but really don’t. How many kids want to be astronauts, doctors, vets etc. None at the age of 5 or 6 want to be a bin man or flip burgers for a living.
At the age of 18 kids become adults and at that point they can decide for themselves what they want to do.
When at school, I used to know a girl that was a total tomboy, and in later life realised she was lesbian. Today, she’d be whisked away to have hormone treatment and her chest strapped.
These experiments with kids are disgusting and should be illegal.