Molotov cocktails launched at Montreal protest following Quebec crackdown law
Posted May 18, 2012 10:10 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Molotov cocktails were tossed during a large protest designed as an act of defiance Friday against a legal crackdown by the Quebec government.
Police reported an explosive device being launched. A Canadian Press photographer reported seeing at least two and there were other reports of multiple devices being tossed.
The protest had begun peacefully.
Participants had said they were encouraged by the thousands-strong turnout and by the support from bystanders honking their car horns or clapping while they passed.
Opponents of the Charest government — including its political opposition — have begun attacking its approach to the protests, even more than the tuition hikes that originally sparked the unrest.
The Montreal march came hours after the government passed a law setting limits on the ability to protest. Also Friday, a new municipal bylaw imposed stiff fines on people wearing masks while demonstrating.
A few people in the crowd were in fact wearing masks. However, the mask bylaw and the protest limits were not expected to be applied until Saturday.
Police said they were given the march route in advance — one of the many stipulations of the new provincial law. They were not commenting, however, on reports that their phone lines were flooded by people calling to report the route, in a unique gesture of civil disobedience.
The nighttime protests have been going on every night for nearly a month. But some participants said this was their first one.
Milly Pominville, a 20-year-old junior college student, acknowledged she was nervous attending the protest after the passage of the special law.
“I don’t want anything bad to happen,” she said.
“But I hate Jean Charest so much. He has to go.”
Pomanville called the new law “stupid” and vowed to return for the marches every day from now on.
