American Activist Facing Extradition to Canada Over Toronto G20 Protests

By JG Vibes
theintelhub.com
February 25, 2013

As the economic situation world-wide continues to deteriorate various forms of dissent continue to arise and governments everywhere are going great lengths to make an example out of anyone who steps out of line.
This week an American activist, Joel Bitar is facing extradition to Canada because he was apparently seen in an area where property was damaged during the G20 protests in Toronto almost three years ago.

According to a post was made to his support page:

On Thursday, February 14th, at 6 o’clock in the morning, federal marshals arrested an American activist, Joel Bitar, in his New York, NY home on a provisional arrest warrant issued by the US Attorney’s office, acting on a foreign extradition request from Canadian authorities.
The complaint against Joel cites 26 counts, almost all relating to property damage that occurred during the G20 summit protests in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in June 2010.
After a temporary delay in court proceedings—due to an outbreak of lice in the federal prison where Joel and many others have the misfortune of being held, the weekend, and a national holiday on Monday—Joel went before Magistrate Judge, Gabriel W. Gorenstein, on Tuesday, February 19th, to determine whether he would be granted bail as he awaits his extradition hearing in the United States.During the proceedings, a general timeline of the actions of the Canadian and US authorities was established.
Joel was arrested in Toronto, along with a little over 1,100 other people, during the G20 protests on June 26 and 27th 2010, in what is thought to be the largest mass arrest in Canada’s history.
Joel was processed and released without any charges. In December 2010, lead G20 investigator, Det. Sgt. Gary Giroux, announced to various Canadian news agencies that Canada was seeking the extradition of three Americans for damages amounting to $500,000.
Soon after, Joel retained the services of an attorney, Martin Stolar, who contacted Giroux. According to Stolar’s testimony on Tuesday, Giroux confirmed that Joel was a suspect and they were investigating him on charges relating to property destruction.
The Assistant U.S. Attorney said that the original complaint against Joel—which details the charges—was prepared in October 2011. Canadian authorities then spent some time going through their image and video database from the G20, as well as obtaining Facebook posts that Joel allegedly made regarding the G20 summit in Canada, and submitted a request for extradition in October 2012 which jumpstarted a winding process involving the US Embassy in Washington DC, the State Department, and the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs.
It is worth noting that in this time period beginning in December 2010 up until his arrest in February 2013, Joel traveled overseas several times, and was not arrested, although he was stopped by the Department of Homeland Security and questioned. Joel’s response was that they should speak to his lawyer.
Establishing this timeline of events took up the longest part of the proceedings, and there was much back-and-forth between the Assistant U.S. Attorney—who opposed bail, pressed US legal obligations in respect to treaties with Canada, and claimed that the allegations against Joel, which mostly relate to property damage, are extraditable offenses that endangered Canadian citizens—and Joel’s current attorney, Philip Weinstein—who argued several special circumstances (such as delay, the political nature of the charges, and community ties) that allow for bail in extradition cases.
After some consideration, Judge Gorenstein granted bail on the basis of the special circumstance of “delay” (it had been over two years since Det. Sgt. Giroux had spoken with Martin Stolar, and alleged Joel’s involvement) and acknowledged Joel’s low risk of flight.

The stipulations of the bail are steep: Joel was granted bail to the tune of $500,000—a little tit-for-tat—as well as house arrest with electronic monitoring. He was released into the custody of his parents on Wednesday, February 20th. His next court date—which is his actual extradition hearing—is currently scheduled for March 20th.—Thanks to Courtney Harrop of The Political Fail Blog for passing along this info.

While I certainly would never advocate vandalism, we still don’t even know if he’s guilty, and these charges are obviously trumped-up and the costs inflated.
If this was a frat boy flipping over someones car because his favorite team just won the big game, they probably would have given him a period of probation and offered him a payment plan, if that.
To extradite someone like this is obviously a show of force to make an example out of them, and discourage anyone else who may step out of line.
We saw this same approach with Aaron Swartz, Bradley Manning, the grand jury resistors and Julian Assange among many other people who engage in various different types of activism.  This is intended to discourage others from speaking out but it is likely to have the opposite effect.
http://theintelhub.com/2013/02/25/american-activist-facing-extradition-to-canada-over-toronto-g20-protests/