Prime Minister Justin Trudeau leaves a small business after stopping to meet the people inside, in Surrey, B.C., on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. Vancouver police say 100 officers were sent to a restaurant where Trudeau was dining Tuesday night after it was surrounded by protesters. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
VANCOUVER – Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters surrounded a Vancouver Chinatown restaurant where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was dining Tuesday night, with scores of police sent to control the crowd that was chanting for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Sgt. Steve Addison said police used a Taser to subdue one man who was arrested for assaulting an officer, while another was arrested for obstruction.
Addison told a news conference that police were concerned about “specific actions” by the Chinatown protesters, including the moving of protective barricades.
He said 100 officers attended what he called a “spontaneous” protest by about 250 people just before 10 p.m. He said the officers had been sent to control the crowd so Trudeau could leave the restaurant.
Videos showed protesters waving Palestinian flags, shouting slogans and jeering Trudeau outside the Bargheera restaurant and cocktail bar on Main Street in Chinatown.
Addison said a 27-year-old man from Coquitlam, B.C., was arrested after an officer was punched in the face and her eyes were gouged while she was trying to disperse the crowd. He said the officer was taken to hospital.
Other videos posted earlier in the evening show Trudeau being heckled by protesters inside Vij’s, a restaurant in a different part of the city.
Trudeau is seen speaking to other diners then embracing celebrity restaurateur Vikram Vij, who accompanies the prime minister as he leaves the restaurant, trailed by chanting protesters.
Charlotte Kates, an organizer with the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, said she was at both protests.
She said the protesters could not sit by and let political leaders “go about ordinary business.”
“We want Canada to take a real position on this issue and not simply say that, you know, the Israeli occupation should be restrained,” she said.
Earlier Tuesday, Trudeau had urged Israel’s government to “exercise maximum restraint” in its war against Hamas, which has included regular airstrikes in Gaza.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 15, 2023.
