Translating the printemps érable

Louis-Philippe Ouimet   June 3, 2012

Original French Text: http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/societe/2012/06/03/004-nadeau-dubois-classe-interrogatoire-sq.shtml

EXCLUSIVE - On April 27th, Gabriel Nadeau Dubois, co-spokesperson for la Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (CLASSE) was interrogated for a lengthly period by detectives from the Sûreté du Québec (SQ)’s division sur la menace extrémiste (extremist threat division).

The same week, Public Security Minister Robert Dutil claimed that Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois had incited violence.

Nadeau-Dubois was called in by the SQ and kept in a room.

‘The exit was blocked by a second detective leaning against the door. I wasn’t really able to leave. I answered the questions honestly, but vaguely’

‘Essentially, their questions were concerning the student movement, CLASSE, and protest actions. They listed groups that are active on social networks to see whether I knew them, If I had information’, he continued.

The division interrogated him for nearly 80 minutes.

‘One of the first things that the detective told me was that they were meeting me because of a request made by the Public Security Minister, Mr. Dutil, who she (the detective) said had wondered why the SQ had not been more involved in the student conflict’, he said.

Informed of these comments, Dutil’s political attaché responded that neither the minister nor his cabinet intervene in police operations.

‘The impression I was left with was that the Sûrté du Québec had received orders from political power’ -Gabriel Nadeau Dubois.

Radio-Canada spoke with the detective that interrogated Nadeau-Dubois. She asserted that she did not remember speaking to him, but confirmed that she had met with many other students.

‘Every day, police meet with thousands of different people for various reasons. If a person has not been accused of a crime, he may be considered a person of interest at the first meeting, a suspect at the second and accused at the third. The orders cannot come from the political realm. It’s a question of investigation, of security’, asserts Mathias Tellier, ex-detective with the SQ and analyst of police intervention.

The SQ is not the only body to investigate students. The Montreal Police force also devotes one of its squads, the escouade Guet des activités des mouvements marginaux et anarchistes (GAMMA) to this end. The CLASSE and its spokesperson have denounced the squad.

The  Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) and the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) say that they have never been called in for questioning in a police investigation. The SQ has said that it will not give any interviews on why Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois was interrogated.

Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.

*Translating the printemps érable is a volunteer collective attempting to balance the English media’s extremely poor coverage of the student conflict in Québec by translating media that has been published in French into English. These are amateur translations; we have done our best to translate these pieces fairly and coherently, but the final texts may still leave something to be desired. If you find any important errors in any of these texts, we would be very grateful if you would share them with us at translatingtheprintempsderable@gmail.com. Please read and distribute these texts in the spirit in which they were intended; that of solidarity and the sharing of information.