Canada police use pepper spray, stun grenades to clear protesters

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Canada police use pepper spray, stun grenades to clear protesters

Feb 20, 2022: The Canadian police used pepper sprays and stun grenades on Saturday, to clear the capital of trucks and protesters who had occupied the city Ottawa for more than three weeks to protest against COVID-19 restrictions.

After clearing part of the blockade and making more than 100 arrests on Friday, 47 more arrests were made Saturday morning as police moved swiftly to disperse the central part of the blockade in front of Parliament and the Prime Minister’s Office.

Police used loudspeakers to warn the crowd to disperse or face arrest. Some loud bangs of stun grenades were heard. People were sprayed with “a chemical irritant in an effort to stop the assaultive behaviour and for officer safety”, police said.

“We told you to leave. We gave you time to leave. We were slow and methodical, yet you were assaultive and aggressive with officers,” police said in a statement to the truckers posted on Twitter.

The officers broke the windows of vehicles to arrest the people inside, but the overall number of protesters decreased dramatically compared to the past few days.

Some of those arrested on Saturday wore body armour and had smoke grenades and other fireworks in their bags and vehicles, police said.

Protesters threw smoke canisters, police said. Several large trucks that have been parked in front of parliament for weeks drove away as the police approached their position. No tear gas has been used, police said.

Protesters initially wanted to end the mandate for cross-border COVID-19 vaccines for truck drivers, but the blockade has gradually turned into a protest against the government and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

On Monday, Trudeau called on the emergency services to give his government greater powers to stop the protests. It authorized banks and financial institutions to temporarily freeze the accounts of suspects supporting the blockade without obtaining a court order. 

The federal government said on Saturday it would provide 20 million Canadian dollars to Ottawa businesses that have suffered losses due to the blockade.

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