I have now returned from the barren crime ridden wasteland of Ottawa and once again encountered assorted mercenaries, misogynists, anarchists, racists and white supremacists. An update follows. For the faint of heart, you have been warned. Here goes. #FreedomConvoy
Meet Rosina Kharal, Comp Sci lecturer at the University of Waterloo who came with her two kids to the protest. She gave a fiery speech to rousing applause. For her the trucker convoy brings hope. She's not been able to teach as she's unavvxed. She’s Muslim and raised in Canada.
Unfortunately I only managed to get a short snippet of Rosina’s speech. At this point, it was either keeping my fingers warm or have them amputated. It was cold out there. 🥶🥶🥶🥶 She really is a great orator.
Meet Mohammed, Omar, 21 and originally Egyptian, and Ali, 18 (second gen from Iraq). They want to tell the world they're not white supremacists and invite you to come down and see for yourself. They say we know how media/govt propaganda works from the failed Arab Spring in Egypt.
Mohammed, Omar, and Ali are all Ottawa residents and two of them go to Carleton University.
Meet Deep and Bindu, Ottawa residents originally from New Delhi, India. They were sharing delicious hot samosas with anyone who wanted one. They say they're there to fight for their freedom and show support for the truckers.
Btw, Omar pictured above was carrying a video camera around because he wanted to capture the ethnic diversity at the protests to show his friends that what they were reading in the mainstream media that these are white supremacists is garbage.
Group photo with Rosina started with her two sons and two other people and the group just kept growing. #FreedomConvoy

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Rupa Subramanya

Rupa Subramanya Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @rupasubramanya

Feb 5
Here are Sandeep and Jag from Montreal. Both originally from India. They're here to oppose lockdowns and mandates. They say they're not white supremacists. Image
More mercenaries from Montreal spreading hateful messages of love. I suspect Ottawa can't handle this outpouring of affection. Call in the army. Image
Meet Ottawa residents Kyle and Meghan with this extremely provocative message of coming together and ending divisions. Should be filed under hate speech. Image
Read 6 tweets
Feb 5
#FreedomConvoy2022 is now receiving donations from #GiveSendGo . Within a few hours, they've already raised more than $66,000.😬givesendgo.com/FreedomConvoy2…
GiveSendGo site is down. It's overwhelmed by the traffic clearly. Been trying to refresh for several minutes but no dice. #FreedomConvoy is now accepting donations at GiveSendGo. Fascinating how quickly it's managed to raise fresh funds. 😅
#GiveSendGo is at $83,000 so far. All within a few hours. Will the genius who thought that deleting their GoFundMe account would somehow deter this movement, please stand up. This is pretty dumb.
Read 6 tweets
Feb 4
Statement from GoFundMe says they have evidence from law enforcement that FreedomConvoy "has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity." medium.com/gofundme-stori…
This is only going to strengthen #FreedomConvoy 's resolve.What folks don't realize are large private donations individual truckers and even some protestors have been getting from friends,family,farmers,and even some biggies in the private sector etc. So this will be interesting.
And if I were the organizers, I was probably expecting this and planning other alternatives. So this is unlikely to deter #FreedomConvoy . I suspect this will embolden them and bolster support for their cause.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 4
Seen my share of protests and govts refusing to engage. The Congress govt refused to engage with India Against Corruption, a 2011 grassroots movement.Eventually they were forced to meet and agreed to some of their demands.The govt fell in 2014 with corruption as a major issue.😬
For @JustinTrudeau if you want protests to end:
1:treat them as human beings not some demonic fringe. You're the PM of all Canadians.
2:Talk to them and listen to what they have to say.
3: Look outside Canada and the many countries getting rid of vaccine mandates.
4: Canada is one of the few western countries that doesn't recognize natural immunity acquired from recovering from infection. At a minimum that should be recognized.
Read 5 tweets
Feb 3
Just returned from a perilous excursion into the Ottawa badlands. It was tough but the world needs to see these disturbing visuals of “mercenaries” at ground zero. These “occupying forces” continue to threaten civilization as we know it. #FreedomConvoy
This particularly brazen “mercenary” was offering hugs to anyone passing by. Some innocent bystanders were entrapped by this snare. Terrifying.
More disturbing scenes….
Read 6 tweets
Feb 2
I just returned from walking around the Byward market and Elgin street. Almost all restaurants, pubs and small businesses were open with people dining in and shopping. All peaceful. #freedomconvoy22
Everything from high end restaurants like Social and Play to basic pubs are open in downtown Ottawa for dining in. I saw people dining in.
As I was walking, I asked a couple of guys if the restaurants on the street they had just walked down were open. They said yes and assumed I was hungry and invited me to the truckers stall to have food with them. 🙂
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

:(