[1]The Hamilton Police Hate Crimes Unit (HCU) is at it again. As they did last year, the HCU has included a number of activist events and groups in their annual hate crimes report [2].
Included again among the "emerging trends and areas of concerns" that "may have significant impact and repercussions on the Hamilton community in terms of Hate/Bias related incidents" are the G8/G20 counter-summit organizing including "anti-capitalist, anti-globalization, environmentalists, etc." protests (that is one scary "etc.").
The Dali Lama makes it into the report for the second year in a row, as part of a planned religious counter-summit in Winnipeg. I kid you not.
Anarchists get special attention once again with the report naming "the local anarchist movement" and "anarchism" itself. Apparently hating capitalism, the state and oppression is a hate crime according to the Hamilton Police.
New to the list is anti-2015 Pan Am Games organizing including "boycott of sponsors" and "local reaction to building projects for facilities."
This year the police have again included themselves among the vulnerable groups identified in hate crime legislation, by again including anti-police graffiti as an example of a hate crime. This same ploy last year lead one local paper to run an editorial called "Hug a cop or be charged" [3].
As Common Cause pointed out in our response [4]to last year's report, this shows the extent to which the police are willing to go to criminalize dissent.
It also reveals the true, political function of the police under capitalism: to serve the rich and powerful by protecting them and their institutions from the anger of the exploited and oppressed. You can read this article [5] for more analysis on the political role of the police.
In a city as unjust and unequal as Hamilton, where, according to one recent report [6], people living in the richest neighbourhoods live on average 21 years longer than those living in the poorest communities, the police are an indispensable part of keeping the status quo. Witness how they have been only too happy to accommodate the recent calls whipped up by local politicians to "clean up" downtown.
The report also makes a mockery of the idea that the police take hate crimes seriously, though the everyday racism, sexism, homophobia and other oppression doled out by the police already makes that clear enough to anyone who has to deal with them regularly.
Fortunately, at least one local reporter has given the story some coverage, and in quite a critical light at that. This article [7], for example, quotes lawyer and University of Toronto law professor Peter Rosenthal as saying “hating capitalism and advocating its elimination is not a crime.”
It was in large part thanks to another local reporter, who covered the story last year, that the activities of the Hamilton Police have come to light. For last years coverage of the HCU report, including Common Cause's response, click here [8].