Tag: rights Posts

This morning I got to walk along Robson Street and watch the protests as they occurred. Given that I saw first-hand how the police officers and the protesters interacted, I thought I would make a few comments. First, it is everyone’s democratic right in Canada to be allowed to protest peacefully — these rights are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That said, you are not allowed to protest violently, or to break any of the normal laws of this country while in the process of protesting. Vandalism and destruction of property are not forms of protest, they are forms of violence. For the most part, I didn’t witness any altercations between the police and the protesters. I was actually surprised when a few protesters knocked over some newspaper bins that the police didn’t intervene. I suspected that the police were waiting for more people, or perhaps […]

I stumbled across an article tonight about a student who was trying to take a photo of a building and ended up on the group being harassed by some rogue security guard. Obviously the security guard claimed that the building could not be photographed and took it upon himself to intervene. I read about stuff like this all the time, and as a photographer I occasionally run into things like that too. I was in Pacific Center a while ago playing with a lens when a security guard came up to me and threatened to take my camera way unless I stopped taking photos. While at Harvard a few years ago, I had a police officer approach me and demand I remove his photo from my camera. These situations are obviously stressful and can easily get out of hand. I set out trying to find some good resources for what […]