A militarized show of force was used to clear the area of truckers and supporters protesting insane authoritarian mandates. They had snarled traffic and blocked the key trade crossing in Windsor, Ontario.

Canadian police deploy on February 12, 2022, to move protesters blocking access to the Ambassador Bridge demanding an end to government Covid-19 mandates, in Windsor, Ontario. The bridge on the U.S. border has been snarled for days by truckers protesting against vaccination rules. (Photo:Geoff Robins / AFP via Getty Images)

Jon Queally February 12, 2022

This is a developing story… Check back for possible updates…

Police in Windsor, Ontario mobilized Saturday morning to clear brave demonstrators opposed to the heavy repressive and illogical measures related to the Covid-19 pandemic from a bridge at the nation’s border with the United States . The massive police operation aimed to end a dayslong blockade that brought traffic to a standstill and disrupted international trade.

“We urge all demonstrators to act lawfully & peacefully,” police in Windsor, Ontario, home to the Ambassador Bridge, tweeted in announcing the deployment just after 8:00 am local time. The police said they were initiating enforcement of an injunction issued Friday by a judge in Ottawa who said complete blockage of the bridge “cannot be tolerated.”

As of 11:00 am, police had compressed protesters into a smaller area for what one reporter on the scene described as a “stand off” as law enforcement threatened to tow vehicles or arrest individuals that did not leave voluntarily from places blocking the flow of traffic.

The authorities have stopped 500 vehicles outside the French capital ahead of an anti-mandate protest

shared via RT, Al Jazeera…

French police say they intercepted around 500 vehicles trying to enter Paris as part of an anti-mandate ‘Freedom Convoy’ protest on Saturday.

12 Feb 2022

Al Jazeera…

French police fired tear gas at demonstrators on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris on Saturday shortly after a “Freedom Convoy” protesting against COVID-19 restrictions made it into the capital.

Cars carrying protesters managed to get through police checkpoints in central Paris to snarl traffic around the Arc de Triomphe monument.…

It’s not just in France that such protests are brewing. Dozens of trucks and other vehicles, from tractors to a car towing a caravan arrived in The Hague on Saturday as part of a “freedom convoy”, blocking an entrance to the historic parliamentary complex.

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Ahead of the planned protest, police deployed thousands of officers, water cannons, and, for the first time since the Yellow Vest protests in late 2018, armored personnel carriers. An order was issued prohibiting the protests in Paris over fears that the demonstration could result in “public order disturbances.” Courts sided with the authorities, rejecting two appeals against the ban.

Paris Police Chief Didier Lallement said the authorities had dozens of tow trucks at their disposal that would help “put an end to any blockage.” Speaking to France 2 TV on Friday, Prime Minister Jean Castex warned that the French government would be “very firm” should the protesters “block traffic or if they try to block the capital.” Castex added that while the “right to demonstrate and to have an opinion are a constitutionally guaranteed right in our republic and in our democracy,” that right does not apply to blocking traffic.

The protesters insist they did not intend to obstruct the roads, and were merely planning to join Saturday’s anti-mandate protest. One activist told France 24 that the order infringes on their right to demonstrate.

Modeling their movement after the Canadian truckers who have been protesting against vaccine mandates in downtown Ottawa for nearly two weeks, hundreds of people from Lille, Strasbourg, Chateaubourg, and other cities set off for Paris, with hundreds of cars, motorhomes, and vans joining the convoy. A total of 3,300 vehicles are believed to be taking part.

READ MORE: Paris braces for ‘Freedom Convoy’ (VIDEOS)

The protesters are calling on the French government to ditch the vaccine passes, which people are required to present if they want to access public spaces. Rising energy prices are another hot topic with the demonstrators.

Speaking to Ouest-France newspaper on Friday, President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged there was “fatigue” over the Covid restrictions. Macron said he “understood and respected” the anger felt by some sections of society, but called on his fellow countrymen and women to exercise the “utmost calm.”

via Human Wrongs Watch By Angelo Louw*

2 February 2022 (Greenpeace International)* — When Namibia declared its independence in 1990, it officially marked the end of colonialism on the African continent. But, while most African nations have been free of European rule for a number of decades now, it seems that the power dynamics have only really changed in principle.  

School children in Ghana look over plastic waste © David Tesinsky

In 1960, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, known also as the Declaration on Decolonization.

This resolution solemnly proclaimed the necessity of bringing colonialism in all its forms and manifestations to a speedy and unconditional end.

Herein lies the problem. The assumption that statehood is the be all and end all to decolonisation is short-sighted and stifling to any real progress. Granted, a country’s independence is a massive milestone, all considered; however, it simply cannot end there.

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The continued exploitative relationship between countries in the global majority and their former colonisers erodes the foundation of their liberty. There are many “forms and manifestations” in which colonialism still lingers right here on the African continent.

Be it the fact that 14 African countries continue to pay a form of “colonial tax” to France, or that Spanish fishing vessels see nothing wrong with looting our waters. These old colonial habits are very hard to break; the convenience of the West always seems to take precedence over ours.

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Take, for example, the way that countries like the United States (US) scrambled to dump their plastic waste in Africa and other Asian countries after China pulled the plug on their ludicrous arrangement of shipping almost all of its waste there for decades.