Amnesty International and the Alberta Civil Liberties Association have a team ready to monitor all events where police and activists are together. But on the weekend, the G-8 security team rejected their request to have six of the 40 people accredited. Those observers would have had access to detention centres and behind police lines.
Josh Rubenstein of Amnesty's Boston office has come to Calgary to be an official observer. Rubenstein says observers will still be on the streets, but he worries about their safety.
"We don't want police to feel that our remaining in place is somehow a provocation – that we're not observing their order for people to disperse. We will not be activists. We are not here as activists. We are here to be an impartial set of observers, as we were in Quebec City and we are in many other countries around the world."
In a letter, the G-8 security team says the observers were not accredited because they lack necessary knowledge of the law.
Rubenstein says he's been an official observer in many countries. He says they've written a letter to the security team asking them to reconsider their decision.
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