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A few days after invoking an emergency law never used before, the Canadian authorities triggered a police intervention on Friday to dislodge the protesters of the “freedom convoy” who have blocked Ottawa since the beginning of February.
In Canada, the time for passivity in the face of anti-sanitary measures truckers is over. Accused of having let the protesters settle in the heart of the capital Ottawa and paralyze this strategic district where the Parliament is located, the police are launching a major operation on Friday to unblock the situation. Several protesters were arrested and authorities again advised protesters to “leave immediately“. “Intervention is imminent“, had already threatened Thursday Steve Bell, the acting chief of police, in office since Tuesday and the resignation of his predecessor, under the fire of criticism because of his supposed inaction in the face of the crisis.
Logistical, material or financial support to blockers becomes punishable
In recent hours, Chris Barber and Tamara Lich, two figures of the protest movement, had also been arrested. For the first time since the beginning of the crisis, police had been deployed en masse in the streets of Ottawa and a security perimeter erected around the city center. On its Facebook page, the protest group Freedom Convoy 2022 even claimed that the police had begun to push back vehicles carrying a Canadian flag that would try to enter the center.