Korean Job Discussion Forums

[igotthisguitar]

UN Youth Delegates Dragged From Convention Centre
Thu Jun 22, 09:53 PM EST

Three youth delegates to the World Urban Forum complain they were dragged out of the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre on Wednesday night by security officers.

A weeping Nathalie Lozano, 19, told CBC News the incident began when the three women lined up at a security checkpoint in the building,
on their way to the washroom.

Lozano says officials searched their bags and confiscated T-shirts with a political slogan on them.

"We had the shirts that say, 'Don't be a war toy.' We had them in our bags, we didn't have them on. When they saw us in the backpacks with them, they took it from us and they say we couldn't get them."

But she says she decided to back one of her friends who refused to leave without the T-shirts.

"I was a little bit hesitant, I didn't know what to do, 'cause I got a little bit scared, but she said she wasn't going to move at all, and so I decided to stay with them."

Lozano says she was then dragged out of the convention centre by her hair. "They started pulling us, they pulled my hair, they pulled a lot of hair off me."

Micheal Vonn of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association says free speech is compromised when a T-shirt is considered a security threat.

"You do have to ask yourself what country is this when T-shirts are being confiscated. I think that's deeply shocking. It's obviously because of what was written on the T-shirts that was the problem. But why it would be a security problem, it's deeply troubling, obviously.

"And then the allegation of the excessive force, again deeply troubling. You know, whenever we have a scenario like this, we want to know that there's accountability," she told CBC Radio.

The conference is being run by the UN, which means the convention centre in downtown Vancouver is not part of Canada during the session and comes under UN control, says spokesman Sharad Shankardass.

He said it is being policed by security forces from New York and Nairobi.

Shankardass says the T-shirts are considered "objectionable material" by the UN because they directly attack a UN member state. However, he didn't clarify which one.

Nevertheless, he says the UN is taking the incident seriously and will prepare a report.