TORONTO
(CUP) – Derek Soberal stands along a police barrier with a crowd in Nathan
Phillips Square as a part of a January protest against Toronto budget cuts. Holding
a small camera, he films the scene as tension grows between the protesters and
police.
The
situation erupts as a protester attempts to break through the line. In the
ensuing chaos, a police officer knocks Soberal’s camera down and punches him in
the face before stomping on the camera. However, when Soberal crosses the police
barrier in an attempt to retrieve his camera, he is arrested and charged with
unlawful assembly, mischief, and two counts of obstructing a police officer.
A
photo in the Toronto Sun shows Soberal in handcuffs, bruised and bloody. He quotes
Martin Luther King, Jr. in rationalizing why he went over the police barrier to
retrieve his camera, containing potential evidence of the alleged assault: “I submit
that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and
who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the
conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the
highest respect for the law.”
BABY
STEPS
Soberal
has gone from being unable to recite his phone number without stuttering to being
a prominent voice of the Toronto protest scene, featured on the CBC’s Lang
and O’Leary Exchange and
credited in a G20 edition of The Fifth Estate. He also created an
activist-based YouTube channel, TheSecretStore, with over 5,000 subscribers and
3.5 million upload views, as well as the 35,000-member Occupy Canada Facebook
page.
But
January’s budget protest was not Soberal’s first run-in with Toronto police.
His life as an activist and citizen journalist started with the 2010 G20 protests
and Ryerson’s now-defunct CKLN radio station’s Word of Mouth Wednesday program.
“Basically,
I got involved because of the G20 summit,” says Soberal. “That was my first
protest … and I exercised my rights at that time. I got invited onto the show
by [host] Daniel Libby to talk about the experience.”
He
would become a regular on Libby’s show, eventually earning the title of CKLN
programmer.
“Derek
is attracted to media attention,” says Libby. “He’s not afraid to talk to
reporters when they’re around.”
His
ability to speak on the radio and communicate with the media is a hard-earned
skill – from the time he was a toddler until his teens, Soberal underwent
speech therapy. Today, he speaks with near-perfect clarity, pausing
occasionally if his stutter starts to creep back in.
He
says this ability to speak publicly is inspired by Libby: “[Libby] was
confident on the radio, and my voice was cracking the first time,” Soberal says.
“I learned from him.”
GETTING
OUT THERE
Through
the radio show, the pair promoted Toronto G20 Exposed, a documentary produced by
Soberal. The film highlights questionable police actions during the G20
weekend, and premiered at the Student Campus Centre on Gould Street as part of
the Ryerson Student Union’s “Xpressions Against Oppression” week.
One
scene in the documentary shows security footage from Soberal’s condominium, a block
away from Ryerson, about two months after the G20 protests. As he tells it,
Soberal noticed a police car across the street with its lights off, so he
approached the officer and asked a few questions.
After
saying goodbye, the police officer then drove away and came back, accusing him
of loitering and forcefully pushing him. After running from the officer who
pushed him, Soberal was detained by as many as 12 officers who seem to come out
of nowhere. He also claims that while they searched him, they were calling him
a drug addict, an alcoholic and mentally unstable.
“My
cell phone and iPad were getting searched,” he recalls. Though he was
eventually released without charge, he felt it was a message: “I felt like I
was being targeted … I felt like it was a threat; I felt intimidated.”
Toronto
G20 Exposed was used as a source for The Fifth Estate’s episode "You Should
Have Stayed At Home", with Soberal given special thanks in the credits.
When the Occupy Wall Street movement was happening, Soberal created the
Facebook page “Occupy Canada”.
That
prompted a producer from the CBC to contact him to be interviewed on the Lang
and O’Leary Exchange.
Soberal appeared on the show on Oct. 14, the eve of mass demonstrations worldwide,
including Occupy Toronto.
“We
are all a part of the change that we want to see,” says Soberal. “I think
university activism and community activism are all connected.”
UP
NEXT
Soberal
says he may be taking action against the Toronto police, but not until his
trial for the camera incident is over. Soberal’s father Richard found out about
the arrest from a friend.
“I
was pretty disturbed … I turned on the TV and they kept replaying it,” he says.
“They showed him in handcuffs and bringing him into city hall. That upset me.”
Four
people were arrested at the rally, but only Soberal was detained overnight.
Richard says he thinks they purposefully kept Soberal because he had been in
the public eye as part of protest movements.
Hel
was raised near the intersections of Jane Street and Finch Avenue West, an area
with an unsavoury reputation.
“I
mean, when we were living there, you had to stick up for yourself,” recalls
Richard. “You couldn’t run away from anything because the kids would be on your
back. [Derek] got in some fights and that, but you know, it was just normal
stuff.”
Soberal
says the experience was formative and helped make him who he is. “Growing up in
Jane and Finch was a great place — it creates adversity, but it creates
character,” he says. “And that’s my home.”
“Moving
down here now, down here is just the center of everything, ‘the big city’. If
he was living outside the city, I don’t think he would be involved like he is,”
says Soberal’s father. Arguably, he’s more concerned for his son now than when they
lived at Jane and Finch.
“Personally,
I told him to back off [the activism] for a while and that’s the way I feel
now,” he says. "I’m proud of him for what he’s doing, he’s putting in a
lot of effort and he knows what he’s talking about, but I’m just scared that
something bad is going to happen to him.”
Richard
is especially concerned because Derek’s brother Shawn passed away in 2009 at the
age of 33. The family has not disclosed the circumstances involved in Shawn’s
death. “I lost one son and I don’t want to lose another,” Richard says. “As a
father, I’m just worried.”
But
Soberal has no plans on stopping. He’s still filming and editing videos, and
still strongly believes in activism and citizen journalism. He wears his
brother’s jacket when he attends protests, saying he feels protected by it.
“I
think everyone has to recognize that we have the freedom of assembly and the
freedom of speech and we must exercise all of it,” says Soberal.
“We
have voices, we gotta speak out; we have bodies, we gotta stand up," he
says. “It’s about being there for something that you stand behind. We have a
climate in Canada where it’s winter and a lot of people can’t get out. We’re
hoping for a Canadian Spring.”
//Eric Mark Do, The Eyeopener *(Ryerson University)
//Graphics by Sarah Taylor
//Eric Mark Do, The Eyeopener *(Ryerson University)
//Graphics by Sarah Taylor
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