Garth Mullins, a member of the Olympic Resistance Network, is one of many Olympic critics who say they have been harassed by officers working for the event’s security unit.

Credit: Doug Shanks

NEWS: Olympic critics allege police harassment

A group of people who have been publicly critical of the 2010 Winter Olympics have retained legal representation in order to strengthen their demands that police and intelligence officers working for the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit (VISU) leave them alone. Over the last 10 months, they allege, VISU members have visited them at their homes, their workplaces, and in public spaces to question their activities related to the 2010 Games.

“There were two officers waiting for me outside of my workplace downtown. As I came out, they just jumped out, within inches of my face, and scared the shit of out me,” recalls Garth Mullins, a local writer, researcher, and Olympic critic. Mullins was also involved in activism surrounding the 1997 APEC summit at UBC. Despite his requests that the VISU convene a consultation forum to address anti-Olympic activists in public, not in private, he says officers have ambushed him at work, at City Hall, and at home. “They came to my apartment and they were banging on my door and banging on other people’s doors and scaring the neighbours. I don’t know how they know where I live, either.”

Mullins is a member of anti-Olympics group Olympic Resistance Network, 12 members of which have retained the legal representation of Vancouver lawyer and BC Civil Liberties Association vice president Jason Gratl, who wrote a June 11 letter on their behalf to Bud Mercer, Chief Operating Officer of the VISU. The letter demands an immediate cessation to what Gratl says are abusive and unlawful tactics being carried out by the VISU.

Cpl. Bert Paquet, VISU spokesperson, confirmed with WE that the VISU had received the letter, but says he is not at liberty to discuss its contents as it is a legal document. “We’re not just trying to chase a bad guy here,” he says. “What we do, as being in charge of the safety and security of the Olympics, is we’re examining all risks and continually reassessing the plans as we go. What we do, as far as gathering intelligence, is we want to talk to potential threats to the security of the Games.”

In terms of talking to known activists or protest-group members, Paquet says it’s a measure the VISU takes to “either confirm or disregard them as a potential threat to the safety and security of Canadians, and visitors that will come to Canada.”

Paquet maintains that people the VISU approaches do not have to talk to officers or answer questions. “We also respect the right that Canadians have, guaranteed by the Charter of Rights, to protest legally and lawfully,” he says.

Outspoken Olympic critic and Vancouver ophthalmologist Chris Shaw says he has been approached by VISU officers three times in Metro Vancouver: once while walking from a West Broadway coffee shop to his laboratory near 10th and Willow; once near his Deep Cove home, where police allegedly questioned Shaw’s neighbours about his views; and once while leaving the June 24 press conference where the Olympic Resistance Network’s letter was discussed.

“I don’t blame individual police officers,” Shaw says. “I want to know what the politicians told them to do. That’s really where I think we need to go in understanding what instructions they’ve been given, what the rules of engagement are, what they’re afraid of.”

Shaw hopes the police are not doing the job of politicians in working to intimidate Olympic critics as a means of image management for the city, adding that if they’re concerned with violence during the Games, they’re talking to the wrong people. “If this is what their billion-dollar security budget is buying us, then I suspect they’re missing the boat,” he says.