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news

Tamil Tiger Trashers Take to the Skies

By Jerad Gallinger

20090513tamilairad.jpg
Photo by Jonathan Goldsbie/Torontoist.


As members of the Tamil community continue their demonstrations against the conflict in Sri Lanka, a high-flying counter-protest is underway, in the form of a small airplane circling around central Toronto with an anti–Tamil Tigers message in tow. Reader Mark Ostler first noticed the lofty banner, which reads “Protect Canada. Stop Tamil Tigers!”, from his office window downtown. Shortly thereafter, Torontoist contributor Jonathan Goldsbie captured the above photo from Kensington Market (flipped here so that the message reads from left to right).
No word yet on who’s behind the airborne rhetoric, though it’s likely someone—or a group of someones—with a bit of cash: an aerial banner from SkyWords costs more than $500 for a half-hour aloft. Which leads us to ask, wouldn’t it be cheaper to simply make a placard out of bristol board and a piece of wood, head out to Queen’s Park, and start shouting?

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  • http://undefined JMfromTO

    “wouldn’t it be cheaper to simply make a placard out of bristol board and a piece of wood, head out to Queen’s Park, and start shouting?”
    Yes, because a few hundred angry protesters would be cool with that I’m sure. Or was that supposed to be sarcastic?

  • http://undefined Diisparishun

    Is this really a counter-protest? The large demonstrations are intended to protest the humanitarian situation in Sri Lankan Tamil areas. While many demonstrators also support the Tamil Tigers as an agent of Sri Lankan Tamils, the two are not the same thing. It would no doubt help distinguish between them if more Sri Lankan Tamil demonstrators flew, say, a blue World Tamil flag and less flew a red Tamil Tigers flag. But nonetheless — point is that one can both repudiate support for LTTE and continue to support the stated goals of the demonstration.

  • http://undefined LittleMousling

    It’s easier to be an anonymous douchebag than to stand up for your beliefs. Which puts the Tamil protestors—who, whether or not you agree with them, are actually putting their time and money where their mouth is—way ahead of the better-funded asshole(s) behind this carbon-producing airborne “protest.”

  • http://undefined sp

    canadians are too non-confrontational to do a counter-protest

  • http://undefined qviri

    +1.
    +100 actually.

  • http://undefined kman510

    They’re marching the streets of downtown now heading south on Yonge between Dundas and Queen.

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    According to 680News, there was another group on a Don Valley Parkway overpass with the same slogan on a banner—and the airplane message is being investigated as a hate crime by Toronto Police. Just wait’ll they get to the comments on news organizations’ websites…

  • http://undefined Andrew

    The Star is reporting that a small group of Sri Lankan protesters used a similar sign … maybe the airplane is from them?
    “About 60 people opposing the Tamil protesters has hung a banner over a pedestrian bridge that spans the Don Valley Parkway at Gerrard St. It reads: ‘Protect Canada – Stop the Tamil Tigers.’ “

  • http://undefined Andrew

    Didn’t the Kenny vs. Spenny show once fly a “Jesus Sucks!” banner over the city? I can’t remember why.

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    Yes, they did!—it was for an episode called “Who Can Piss Off the Most People?”

  • http://undefined Loozrboy

    Hate crime? Seriously? That’s just ridiculous. It was clearly meant to be confrontational, but surely denouncing a recognized terrorist group falls well into the realm of protected political speech.

  • http://undefined tdotg

    “Members of Toronto’s Sri Lankan community used a banner pulled behind a plane in the sky and a banner and placards over the Don Valley Parkway today to express their fear the Tamil community will bring Tamil Tiger violence to Canada.
    The demonstrators at the Don Valley bridge said they represent more than 50,000, until now, silent Sinhalese Canadians.
    “They have ruined their motherland and now that Canada has offered them shelter they are ruining it here,” added his mother Badra De-Zoysa.”
    I am deeply concerned by where this all will lead. You can only imagine what would have happened (violence? riots?) had the Sinhalese Sri Lankans protested at Queen’s Park, as LittleMouseling suggested.
    It’s pretty to clear to the majority of impartial advisors that there are no rights in the Sri Lankan war, only wrongs, on both sides. The Tamils and the Sinhalese both need to cool it, for the sake of our city. Please don’t pass prejudice onto your kids, and please don’t play out this foreign war on the streets of our city.
    http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/633549

  • http://undefined gotak

    I have to say I find this refreshingly funny. Now if the people or person’s responsible is reading this. Please please please It would make my day if next you do it with fireworks painting the same message into the night sky.
    On a serious note. This is perfectly ok by me. I think if the Tamils are allowed their freedom of speech to the point of saying they support the LTTE a terrorist org. I think there’s nothing wrong with this person or these people saying what they want to say via a air message. In fact it’s smart since it does not presents people as targets for the protesters. A counter protest with people shouting at each other and emotions getting high can turn ugly easily.

  • http://undefined bootman

    well the same could be said if you block off the Gardiner exp way and leave 1000 idling cars. Plus I don’t think the Sri Lankan community would stand anywhere nearing the dwarfing 200,000 Tamils that live in Toronto. So a face-to-face wouldn’t be very smart.

  • http://undefined bootman

    yeah.. I don’t think that’s true. It would be strange to let protesters prop up the LTTE – a banned terrorist group and write “Sinhalese are committing a genocide in Sri Lanka” on placards, but then call ‘Protect Canada – Stop the Tamil Tigers’ a hate crime?
    Other than the word ‘Tamil’ I can’t see how any of that can contribute to a hate crime. And L.T.T.E. stands for Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam -> Tamil Tigers, that’s the short form.

  • http://undefined typezed

    There was a white guy in a goofy furry hat standing with a placard that said TAMIL TIGERS STOP TERRORIZING TORONTO at Yonge and Dundas. At the time I passed him the front of the protest had stopped at the far side of the street. Later, further down the road, a heard a couple cops talking about him. They weren’t impressed. The one cop telling the story said he told him to put away the sign, that he was on his own if the protesters confronted him. The cops wondered what he thought he was doing. Protesting the protest, another said, and they all shook their heads. Then one of the cops wanted to know what nationality he was.

  • http://undefined addict

    i saw that sign when i was on the College streetcar. they were on the Riverdale bridge that goes over the DVP. i just remember thinking, “oh yes. now *that’s* a good idea. really mature.”
    it’s like people are just asking for a fight. it’s sad that they went and actually wasted money (and generated unnecessary greenhouse gases) on an airborne banner.

  • http://undefined dowlingm

    Interesting that you condemn anonymous comment… anonymously.

  • http://undefined dowlingm

    I dunno… GHG of moving 12,000 people downtown, even by transit, is going to be more than one small plane doing a few circuits I would think…

  • http://undefined Canuck

    This guy in “goofy furry hat” has more courage that you and all of us will ever have. Your comment is as slow as the quoted, “valiant” policeman. (Canadian freedom of expressions applies only to …. terrorists?) This determined Canadian and the ones counter protesting Tamil intimidation, please publish your Internet site or/and email address – many concerned Torontonians will join You.

  • http://undefined Canuck

    There is a facebook: “Toronto Protest the Tamil Protesters” organizing a demonstration on Saturday at Queen’s Park.

  • http://undefined pkk

    “Stand up for your beliefs” ? Like the victim of an acid attack?
    http://bailaman.blogspot.com/2009/05/video-acid-attack-on-sinhalese-youth-in.html
    Ridiculous.
    And what were the carbon emissions of the all of the protestors travelling to and from their protest sites? And what were the carbon emissions of blocked traffic of the Gardiner? Again, ridiculous.

  • http://undefined pkk

    -10000 for both of you, actually

  • http://undefined Alogon

    Love how our lazy, stupid cops would flat-out tell a citizen who is not breaking the law that he is on his own if the law-breaking protesters get their feelings hurt by his sign and attack him, all the while waivng their signs in our faces.
    Shaking their heads. As if we should be concerned what impresses these low-rent, troglodytes.
    Just more proof, if you need help don’t expect it from one of Toronto’s finest-wastes-of-taxpayer-money.