adminthe encampment he says has become dangerous.
“This is (the) second critical incident in two days – obviously there is a serious problem here,” Mayor Gregor Robertson said from the Occupy site at Vancouver Art Gallery.
“Having people die . . . is not OK.”
The death comes only two days after a man survived a heroin overdose, leading officials to clamp down on the tent city, ordering the removal of unoccupied tents.
However, the city continues to supply electricity and other services. As Robertson addressed the media, protesters shouted him down. They questioned why the mayor would shut down the site when there are people overdose on drugs every day on the city’s nearby downtown east side.
“Do you close down every hotel you find a corpse in?” shouted one protester.
The mayor said the city’s legal team is working on a way to force out the tent city.
The protesters, however, vowed not to go.
“We will not agree to be shut down. We will be here and you can expect us,” a woman who called herself Kiki said to cheers. The woman who died Saturday, known to those on site as Ashley, was found in a tent where friends thought she was sleeping.
“It’s been really difficult for them,” said protester Lauren Gill of the woman’s friends after discovering her. Media who arrived on scene also faced confrontation by Occupiers who attempted to clear the area of spectators, calling for respect following the woman’s death. Camera crews who attempted to film were obstructed by Occupy protesters wearing neon safety vests holding cardboard signs that read, “Love is greater than $.”
Editor of occupydallas.org, Michael Prestonise, told Press TV’s US Desk on Saturday that the Occupy Dallas movement had designated November 5 as “the Banks Transfer Day”. Prestonise said the movement was urging Americans to close their accounts at large corporate banks to make the statement that “enough is enough”.
Meanwhile, the Occupy protest’ ripples are now being felt at the prestigious Harvard University in the United States.
On Wednesday, about 70 students walked out of an Economics 10 introductory class to protest what they said was a bias towards a destructive brand of free-market economics.
“We found a course that espouses a specific – and limited – view of economics that we believe perpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of economic inequality in our society today . . . There is no justification for presenting Adam Smith’s economic theories as more fundamental or basic than, for example, Keynesian theory,” organisers said in an open letter to Prof Greg Mankiw.
By coincidence, the topic of last Wednesday’s lecture was income inequality – one of the main complaints of the wide-ranging Occupy protest movement. – Toronto Sun/Press TV/Financial Times.
Online Reporter
dyton mupawaenda