On Friday, Canadian police began a large-scale operation to clear the streets of central Ottawa of protesters opposed to measures to combat the Covid-19 epidemic, who have paralyzed the center of the federal capital for nearly three weeks, which led to the exceptional closure of Parliament.
Police, who were deployed in large numbers on the streets of Ottawa, began making arrests following 8:00 (13:00 GMT) Friday.
Police once more advised the “protesters to leave immediately” and told them in a tweet to remain “peaceful”.
And she warned, “There is a heavy police presence on Nicholas Street (near Parliament), and we advise the demonstrators to leave immediately,” explaining that “some protesters surrender and are arrested.”
“We take care to warn you that under state and federal laws, you will be subject to severe penalties if you do not stop your illegal activities and immediately withdraw your vehicles and property from all illegal demonstration sites,” the police wrote.
The police deployed heavily for the first time in the city center on Thursday, so they set up a security cordon and erected hundreds of barriers to control the movement of entry into the area.
In the evening, it arrested two leaders of the protest movement, who will appear in court on Friday.
The protest movement, initially downplayed by the authorities, began in late January with truck drivers demonstrating once morest the imposition of mandatory vaccinations to cross the Canada-US border.
But the demands later expanded to include the abolition of all health measures to combat Covid-19, and for some extended to the rejection of Justin Trudeau’s government.
The Prime Minister announced Thursday that this movement is no longer “peaceful”.
