Yesterday 17 February saw a small low key protest in Bristol, organised in solidarity with the anti-olympic protests in and around Vancouver in the Canadian state of British Columbia. The protest was called after Bristol ABC hosted a cafe and info night at Kebele social centre on Sunday 14 February, which focused on the attacks on the rights of indigenous (native) peoples in Canada, and the ongoing theft of their lands – which has been going on for over 500 years.

The promotion and organisation of the winter olympics in Vancouver has stimulated growing resistance from a broad coalition of communities and campaign groups, that has received an increasingly sympathetic hearing amongst the wider population as the massive costs of the olympics has become clearer, and the information known about the environmental impact has become more detailed – for example in excess of 100,000 trees have now been felled to accommodate the olympics. The Canadian government faces growing anger in relation to the olympics, and the economic mess Canada is currently in. No surprise then that at the end of December 2009, the Candian PM suspended Parliament until early March 2010, in a move that also put an embarassing inquiry into Canada’s complicity with the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan onto the backburner. The olympics and democracy? Yeah right!Read More