Police kettling lawsuit gets go-ahead from Quebec judge

A Quebec judge has approved eight class-action lawsuits against the City of Montreal connected with policekettling practices.

• Crowd control: What is kettling?
• 518 arrests in Montreal after kettling incident

The lawsuits allege protesters weremistreatedand that their rights were violatedduring eight separate incidents of police kettling.

The incidents identified in the lawsuit happened at six protests between 2012 and 2014.

Kettling is a practice usedbypolice officers to surround groups of demonstrators.

Julien Villeneuvehas lived through the experience of kettling more than a few times.

Villeneuveis theMaisonneuveCollege philosophy professor known asAnarchopanda the unofficial, panda-headed mascot of the student protests.

He recalledhow police surrounded demonstrators during a May Day protest last year.

"We were all squeezed in against each other.Some people were hit inside the kettle and afterwards we were tie-wrapped," Villeneuve said.

After waiting for several hours, Villeneuve said he was ticketed.

SibelAtagul, the lawyer handling the class action lawsuit on behalf of the protesters, said many people were issued tickets similar to traffic ticketsin kettling incidents. She said protesters believepolice actions were heavy-handed.

"In some cases, they allege they were held for hours,and they were not allowed to go to the bathroom, and they were filmedand held, so it's a very particular situation," saidAtagul.

She saidprovingthe allegations will be a lengthyand uphill battle.

The City of Montreal objected to the class-action lawsuits, arguing the allegations were not serious enough to warrant legal actionbut, in the end, a Superior Court judge gave the green light for the suit to go ahead.

Some 1,600protesters are expected to join the class-action suits, claiming damages totalling more than $21million.