Several of the organisers of the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa, Canada have been handed additional charges during separate court appearances this week.
Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, who were both arrested prior to the police operation that dismantled the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa last month, have been jointly charged with counselling to obstruct police, counselling mischief, counselling intimidation, intimidation, and mischief.
Previously, Lich, who was initially denied bail, was charged with mischief and counselling to commit mischief, while Barber had been charged with several offences relating to mischief and obstructing police, the Toronto Sun reports.
Diane Magas, a lawyer who represents Lich, has previously filed an appeal over Lich’s bail conditions, which include restrictions on social media use, something the Canadian Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms has claimed violates her rights to free expression.
Lich had initially been denied bail by Justice Julie Bourgeois, who it was later revealed had run for election for the Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in 2011.
While Lich’s lawyer argued the denial of bail may have been tainted by Bourgeois’ political past, Superior Court Justice John M. Johnston asserted that the argument did not have merit. He did grant bail after finding other errors in the judgement of Bourgeois, however.
The new charges against the organisers are just some of nearly 400 charges against 191 Freedom Convoy protesters that were laid in late February following the crackdown and dispersal of protestors from Ottawa after three weeks of protests against Wuhan virus restrictions, vaccine mandates, and vaccine passports.
The protests were ended after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history and forced tow truck operators to remove trucks from the area around the Canadian parliament.
Many had refused such requests prior to this order.
Earlier this week, during a visit to the European Parliament in Brussels, Prime Minister Trudeau was slammed by several Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), including the Alternative for Germany (AfD) MEP Christine Anderson, who confronted Trudeau directly in the chamber.
“[I]t would have been more appropriate for Mr Trudeau — Prime Minister of Canada — to address this house according to article 144. An article which was specifically designed to debate violations of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, which is clearly the case with Mr Trudeau,” Anderson said.
“Then again, a Prime Minister who openly admires the Chinese ‘basic dictatorship’, who tramples on fundamental rights by persecuting and criminalising his own citizens as terrorists, just because they dared to stand up to his perverted concept of democracy, should not be allowed to speak in this house at all,” she added.
Former judge Mislav Kolakusic, a Croatian MEP, also spoke against Trudea in the parliament.
“We watched how you trample women with horses, how you block the bank account accounts of single parents so that they can’t even pay their children’s education and medicine. That they can’t pay utilities [or] mortgages for their homes,” Kolakusic said.
“For many citizens of the world, it is a dictatorship of the worst kind,” he added.