'This was truly unjust': Protesters at #FreePalestine rally plan to fight tickets
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Martha Paynter, registered nurse and PhD candidate at Dalhousie University, similarly called the injunction ‘unjustifiable.’
‘From the very beginning of this pandemic, I have said along with many people — criminologists, activists, healthcare providers — that policing is an inappropriate way to respond to the pandemic,’ she said.
‘Policing causes public health problems. Policing in this city, and across the country, is a cause of racist violence (and) is a cause of harm.’
She also said using an injunction to stop anti-mask rallies does more harm than good.
‘It means that really pressing political issues, like genocide in Palestine, could not be protested,’ she said.
‘We don't want police to be stopping protests, because it's too great a sacrifice.’
Most people in Nova Scotia have been following public-health measures, she added, and anti-maskers are ‘far and few.’
The virus causing COVID-19 is airborne, making transmission risk the highest in closed, poorly ventilated areas, she said. To critics saying people should not be organizing a rally during the pandemic, Paynter said protesting injustice is an essential right that should not be stifled.
‘When we weigh the dangers, I do not think some mask-less people outside on Citadel Hill who I can easily stay away from are a greater threat than prohibition of peaceful general assembly.’”