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Overview of the G20 Main Conspiracy

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The legal system is a weapon used against anarchists and against any group that poses a threat to the social order. Rather than just be outraged, let's focus on the many lessons to be taken from this experience about how to organize more safely and effectively in the future. The goal of this paper is to offer a few of these lessons and provide enough information for other communities to draw their own conclusions. The mobilizations against the Toronto G20 in 2010 continue to shape resistance in Southern Ontario, both in how it's been an opportunity for learning, and in how the continuing repression from it has affected our lives. You might have been one of the thousands of people who participated in protests, you might be one of hundreds of people who faced criminal charges as a result of this show of resistance. The police infiltration of anarchist and activist communities marked an escalation in repression that should be impossible to forget. This article focusing on the G20 Main Conspiracy charges was first released in the fall of 2011. It describes the policing and legal strategies of the State and the organizing models of those targeted, to gain an understanding of one of the largest campaigns of repressions against anarchists in Canada so far. The following text is slightly edited, both to fix missing or incorrect information and to tell this story in a more timeless manner. There are endnotes to point out where significant changes were made. Our intention is not to become indignant at this lifting of Canada's democratic veil. The legal system is a weapon used against anarchists and against any group that poses a threat to the social order. Rather than just be outraged, let's focus on the many lessons to be taken from this experience about how to organize more safely and effectively in the future. The goal of this paper is to offer a few of these lessons and provide enough information for other communities to draw their own conclusions. It remains impossible to write a perspective that unifies everyone's voices who experienced repression from resisting the G20 in Toronto in 2010. There are countless stories of people who faced serious repression and police violence during or since the G20. Each person's story is unique and important. Even the story of the G20 "Main Conspiracy Group  remains both incomplete and controversial. We want to embrace the reality that this is controversial “ if we attempt to tell a story that everyone will agree with, we fear it would silence a lot of the hard lessons and critiques we have explored in this piece. The original release of this report was met both with hostility and with supportive relief that this story was finally being told. We appreciated all of the responses to the original writing "it helped us to realize the trauma that remains around our experiences of the G20 and the difficulty in learning important lessons. We have taken many of the critiques into consideration, making edits where we felt it important to do so. Sore places are important to explore, and defensiveness prevents us from owning our shit. It's incredibly important for the story of these charges to be available, whether or not everyone agrees with it. We encourage you to add to this telling. As we continue our struggles against the State and capitalism, the State continues its repression against anarchists and activists in Southern Ontario, across Canada, and internationally. We can only expect similar State strategies in the future Joint Intelligence Groups (JIGs), ongoing infiltration and intelligence gathering, surveillance, etc. We want to distill timeless lessons, so those that continue to fight can learn from our story “ both the mistakes and the inspiring resilience. Since 2010, there has been a disturbing intensification of widespread criminalization in Canada. The Crime Bill (Bill C10) was passed in 2012 and is projected to imprison tens of thousands more people, informing the building of dozens of new high-tech prisons across the country. Anti-immigration laws are making it ever more difficult for people to stay in Canada, and easier for the State to imprison or deport people without status. The Quebec student strike in 2012 was met with Law 78, essentially criminalizing any participation in protest in an effort to suppress the uprising. The PanAm Games are scheduled to take place in the Greater Toronto Area in 2015, and we know that police are forming a JIG similar to the one that directed the campaign of surveillance and harassment for the G20. In light of this escalation, we feel there is some urgency in reflecting on the story of the G20 Main Conspiracy Group As anarchists, we situate ourselves within our local contexts of resistance and within a global struggle against capitalism. We are only beginning to understand global coordination of policing strategies, in a response to a growing tendency towards international anarchist solidarity. The pigs in your town are g

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