MONTREAL (CP) - After losing many fellow demonstrators to arrests, a smaller but equally determined group took to the streets for a second day Tuesday to oppose a World Trade Organization meeting in Montreal.
More than 300 activists zig-zagged their way through several downtown blocks, chanting slogans such as Whose Streets? Our Streets and This Is What Democracy Looks Like. Some waved placards while others banged on cooking pots and rattled shakers made from plastic pop bottles.
But unlike Monday's protest, in which some demonstrators masked in bandanas vandalized store windows and luxury vehicles, Tuesday's march was peaceful and without incident.
The group made one swing by a metal police barricade near the Sheraton Centre, where about 25 trade ministers gathered to discuss the future of an international treaty. But the protesters chose not to stop or confront the dozens of police officers in riot gear who manned the perimeter.
Several blocks away from the demonstrations, more than 200 protesters appeared in municipal court to face charges such as unlawful assembly. They were arrested by Montreal police Monday as they reassembled shortly after a march near the Sheraton.
Of 238 people arrested Monday, 140 spent the night in jail.
Most were released Tuesday on a $200 bond and were ordered not to participate in any illegal protests. Many will return to court in late October. Three other people were arrested Tuesday in connection with violence against TV crews on Monday.
Dr. Amir Khadir, who was detained for about eight hours Monday but was not charged, said he's concerned that some people avoided Tuesday's protests because they were intimidated by police tactics and the mass arrests.
"A lot of people will probably be completely frozen by the fact it could happen again," said Khadir, who was asked to help out as a doctor after the protest Monday and was rounded up with other demonstrators.
"This is exactly what needs to be corrected."
The protesters who did turn out Tuesday said they refused to be deterred by threats of arrest.
"We're juiced, we're pumped," said a young man from New Jersey who narrowly escaped arrest Monday.
"It gives us solidarity," said the man, who did not want to be identified. "It shows us that we are living in a police state, that the police are using repressive tactics against us, they don't want freedom of speech."
Many of the protesters accuse the WTO of being too secretive and profit-driven at the expense of the world's poorest countries.
The organization is currently struggling to reach a breakthrough among all 146 member countries on the thorny issue of agriculture subsidies before a crucial meeting of the entire WTO Sept. 10-14 in Cancun, Mexico.
Those who organized this week's protests say they gave no specific instructions to activists not to use violence to get their point across.
"What we have called for is a mass mobilization - a march," said Tamara Herman, a spokesperson for the Popular Mobilization Against the WTO.
"At the same time we respect everybody in this march and we respect the fact everyone will make their own decisions and do whatever they have planned."
She stressed the businesses vandalized Monday - the Gap, Burger King, a Canadian Forces recruiting centre - were deliberately targeted as symbols of violence, multinational corporate greed, or human rights abuses.
"To us a couple of broken windows poses no disrespect to human dignity the way the Canadian Armed Forces and companies that use sweatshops do," said Herman.
Some businesses took precautions Tuesday in the event the protests produced a repeat of Monday's vandalism.
A security guard wearing a gas mask stood watch outside a McDonald's restaurant as protesters passed by without incident.
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