The last big trucks have been towed on sunday outside the Canadian capital. Ottawa It was calm for the first time in three weeks after a police operation ended a long protest against Covid health regulations.
Workers were busy clearing the snowy streets of the centro de Ottawawhere the riot police led two days of clashes with the trucker-led protestersto finally dislodge them completely from the outskirts of the Parliament, the epicenter of the protest.
The last of the protesters stayed late into the night on Saturday, singing 1980s-era protest anthems and throwing Fireworks in front of a four meter high security fence that was hastily placed around the parliamentary compound. But the protest became street party ended up dying when a strong frost took over the city.
On Sunday morning, police guarded several checkpoints that restricted access to a large area of downtown Ottawa – some 200 hectares – while a heavy deployment of security forces occupied the land gained from the truckers.
Almost 200 detainees
Ottawa Police issued a reminder to driving ban in that perimeter except for local residents and workers. By mid-morning he had reported that two people had been arrested, bringing the number of detainees to 191.
He also said that so far 57 vehicles have been towed out of the cityparalyzed since on January 29 hundreds of trucks, vans and other vehicles parked there in protest.
Meanwhile, cleanup crews dismantled the last tentsfood stalls and other makeshift structures by protesters, and clearing mounds of snow from streets in preparation for the reopening of local businesses.
And for the first time in weeks, the Ottawa residents they weren’t startled awake by the incessant honking, which had become a staple of the protests.
Keep fighting
After being evicted, many protesters told AFP that they would continue to fight for their cause. Although pandemic health measures in Canada have been eased as the number of cases tends to decline, protesters have vowed to push for the complete removal of health measures. restrictions, which are among the strictest in the world.
Meanwhile, the Government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces a lawsuit from an association for the defense of civil liberties and criticism from his political rivals for the decision to invoke rarely used emergency powers to suppress protests.
The call “Freedom Convoy” started like a month ago a protest by truckers against the obligation to be vaccinated against covid to cross the United States border.
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With the days it gained followers and inspired similar protests in other countries, such as France. Now Washington is bracing for a possible trucker protest to coincide with the state of the union address in the next week.
The convoy in canada caused blockages in border crossingsI know what had an economic impact on both sides of the borderto. The police cleared them out a week ago. In those operations were detained dozens of people, including at least three protest leaders, and they were frozen 32 million Canadian dollars in donations and bank accounts linked to the movement of truckers.