UPDATE Hilary Beaumont's video of the first arrest of the Occupy NS protesters.
UPDATE A second video has appeared from Youtube user goldford23:
UPDATE: A much more graphic video has surfaced, courtesy of John Wesley Chisholm.
UPDATE: We're liveblogging the eviction right now; keep it open in a separate window for a live stream of news from the scene.
Halifax Regional Police moved into a quiet, washed-out Occupy NS encampment in Victoria Park around 1:45 p.m. this afternoon.
Occupiers found notices after attending the Remembrance Ceremony in Parade Square.
"A couple of us actually went own and laid a wreath, and we came back, and the notice was here, and police came and handed us the notice explaining that we had to leave," says one protester, who didn't give her name. The camp had a meeting about how to cope if they were arrested."
Notice to Persons Occupying Hrm Parks
It wasn't much after 2 p.m. that police appeared. After rallying at the Smitty's on Tower Road, they moved into the encampment, forming a line in front of one of the camps. Officers behind them began dismantling tents, and putting them in garbage bags. ONS chant of "An injury to one is an injury to all."
Police continued to push forward, far outnumbering protesters (media definitely were a major presence, too) and kept dismantling tents and stuffing garbage bags with tents, sleeping bags, and other Occupy NS protester belongings.
As the police moved behind the line of protesters, one protester yelled "stand on your tents! They can't take them if we're on them." This changed the nature of the eviction, and police, who had been working calmly up to this point, began to tussle with protesters.
Several videos appear from that time frame, between 2:30 and 3 p.m. One shows a woman being thrown to the ground, and another, an exclusive to Halifax OpenFile, shows a covered in mud being arrested.
As of 4:30pm, 15 14 people had been arrested at the protest, CBC Halifax reports, for disturbing the peace.
As of 4:49 p.m., NDP MLA Howard Epstein weighed in in a statement: "the move by HRM to evict the protesters on Remembrance Day is a disgrace and undermines the very rights and freedoms our veterans fought for."
Video of chants from Occupy NS after tents were removed. (From The Dalhousie Gazette)
Mayor Kelly finally weighed in on the CBC news at 5 p.m. EST:
He told CBC that "At no time were (the protesters) told they'd be able to come back to Grande Parade. At no time, were they told they'd be able to come back," adding that it was council's decision that they'd not be welcomed back, and that camping was no longer allowed in any parks.
"Why now?" Amy Smith asks. It's Remembrance day.
Kelly doesn't answer the question, but he does call the parks campgrounds, which, at very least, and without interpretation or bias, is pretty funny.
Then Kelly says it's all out of his hands, when asked why on Remembrance Day:
"Council gave the direction that they will not be allowed back in, from that point on, it became an operational issue between bylaw enforcement and police, and that is in their hands."
Around 5:20 p.m., Halifax Media Co-op protester/journalist Miles Howe was arrested in Victoria Park. He can be heard saying "I do not have a knife. I do not have a knife," in the CTV video.
UPDATE: At 5:40 p.m., Councillor Linda Mosher told Atlantic Film Festival director Gregor Ash on Facebook that councillors were not brought into any discussion about the eviction, as Mayor Peter Kelly told CBC Nova Scotia's Amy Smith.
"Council did NOT give directive or authority to evict today. We were given a briefing + told about legislation prohibiting camping and presence between 10 p.m. - 5 a.m. My understanding was that they would give written notice to them today. Not eviction today, notice only. Our focus was to ensure an appropriate venue for the Jewish Dignity Day ceremony and Remembrance Day ceremony. In my opinion it was wrong to do this today and detracts from our Veterans and Remembrance Day.
She tells Ash that council wasn't even involved until they got a brief update Nov. 1 in council. "Mayor said that Legal said no bylaws broken," she writes. "Then all of a sudden (Nov. 8) we are told it is contrary. Also that it is an operational issue—don't think Mayor has authority to order this. Comes from Administration, CAO or in this case Acting CAO."
"I could be wrong, many of us were @community Remembrance Day ceremonies and had no input nor notification this would occur."
UPDATE
At 6:30 p.m., Councillor Dawn Sloane confirms that council wasn't aware of the planned eviction. "We were not given details or a game plan," she says.
But Sloane says the tide may have been turning for the Occupy NS protesters. "We'd had phone calls from a lot of citizens asking for us to remove the tents, because they were infringing on other people's rights to use the Park," she says. "The bottom line is, I'm not against protesting, but the encampments were becoming an issue."
Sources in the area say that parishioners at All Saints Cathedral, where the protesters were allowed to use the washroom, were becoming concerned. They were apparently afraid to use the bathroom, and when the protest was in Grande Parade, residents called in noise complaints after megaphones were used — sometimes as late as 2:30 a.m. There have also been some reports of food poisoning in the canteen tents. We're looking into that as well.
UPDATE
The Chronicle-Herald interviews Peter Kelly and gets the same answer over and over.
UPDATE
The Occupy NS congregation plans a rally today at Parade square. No word yet if protesters arrested yesterday have been released yet.
Here's a Storify of the Twitter backlash against Mayor Peter Kelly:
More to come as events develop...
Editor's note: The headline of this story was changed from "Peter Kelly's eviction of Occupy NS begins" to the current headline to reflect the evolution of events.
