February 16, 2010 Features

50 years of dissent

April, 1967: A “Queer-sweep” of downtown Montreal takes place as part of preparation for Expo ‘67. Police then allegedly arrested several officials involved with the Expo organizing committee, but the arrests were stricken from records.

Oct. 2, 1968: the Mexico City massacre takes place. Thousands of students and protesters were killed by police, just 10 days before the Olympics were held in the city.

Oct. 16, 1968: American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos are banned from the Olympic Village for raising the Black Power fist during their medal acceptance. The Black Panther Party, who used the gesture as a symbol, was considered a terrorist organization at the time.

1968: SPVM announce that there are over 12,000 homosexuals on file with the police

1971: 100 gay liberationists assemble for a demonstration on St-Denis Street.

Sept. 5, 1972: the Munich Massacre unfolds during the second week of the Olympics, where Israeli athletes were taken hostage and murdered by the Black September Organization.

Feb. 4, 1975: 36 people are arrested after the police raid Aquarius Sauna on Crescent Street.

May, 1975: 2,600 signatures are collected for a petition to the Minister of Justice pushing to
include sexual orientation in the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

May 14, 1976: 89 people are arrested and a list of 7,000 members of Comité homosexuel anti-repression (CHAR) is seized after police raid the Neptune Sauna.

June 19, 1976: The first pride march occurs in Montreal, seeing 300 people take to the streets of René-Lévesque Boulevard.

July 17, 1976: during the Olympic opening ceremony in Montreal, 25 African nations announced their boycott of the Olympic Games due to the International Olympic Committee’s refusal to bar New Zealand from the games. The New Zealand rugby team had been touring South Africa, then an apartheid state and then banned from participating in the Olympics.

October 21, 1977: Truxx Bar is raided, 146 people are arrested.

October 22, 1977: 2,000 people block Ste-Catherine and Stanley Streets during rush hour to protest the raid on Truxx bar.

Summer, 1980: over 60 nations, led by the United States and including Canada, boycotted the Olympic Games held in Moscow as a sign of protest to the U.S.S.R.’s invasion of Afghanistan.

Summer, 1984: the U.S.S.R. boycotted the Olympic Games held in Los Angeles as a sign of protest to the U.S.’s 1980 boycott.

July 27, 1996: Christian extremist Eric Robert Rudolph’s pipe bomb kills two and injures 100 during a concert at the Atlanta Summer Olympics.

Summer, 2004: Arash Miresmaeili, an Iranian judoist, refused to compete in the final against Israel’s Ehud Vaks. Although Miresmaeili denied it was due to Vaks’ nationality, he received a handsome sum of money upon his return to Iran.