A truck driver in Canada who was filmed being beaten up by Ottawa police while he was on the ground, giving himself up for arrest, has told of his shock at the violence – saying: ‘They broke my body a little bit, but not my spirit.’
Csaba Vizi, a Hungarian-born driver who has lived in Canada for 20 years, spent the last three weeks protesting against COVID-19 mandates in the Canadian capital.
He told Fox News’ host Tucker Carlson that he was astonished by the way Justin Trudeau’s forces put down the protests.
‘I moved to Canada – everything was wonderful,’ Vizi said.
‘People talk to you in the street, without knowing you – asking you hey, how are you? I had never experienced stuff like that before.
‘So I was so happy. I said jeez, that is so nice. Everything was beautiful.’
Vizi said that the pandemic, and the restrictions – Trudeau has presided over some of the strictest lockdowns in the world – made Canada an unpleasant place.
Csaba Vizi on Monday night told Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson about his arrest by Canadian police during the trucker protest
Vizi, a 20-year resident of Canada, is pictured near his truck, before he was arrested
On Monday, Canada’s parliament backed Trudeau’s decision to invoke rarely-used emergency powers to end the protests.
Trudeau told reporters his government still needed temporary emergency powers citing ‘real concerns’ about threats in the days ahead.
‘This state of emergency is not over. There continue to be real concerns about the coming days,’ Trudeau said.
Some members of the official opposition Conservative Party accuse Trudeau of abusing his powers. Legislator Dean Allison decried what he called ‘authoritarian military style measures’ against the protesters.
‘I can say that the last two years – it’s impossible to live here anymore,’ said Vizi.
Canadian police officers face off with protesters in Ottawa on Saturday, using pepper spray to repel them
Police push back protesters as they take action to put an end to the protest on Friday
The footage from the weekend shows Vizi, in his truck, speaking to a police officer.
The officer and Vizi appear to agree that Vizi will be arrested.
Footage showed Vizi then being pressed to the ground by at least three officers, in the snow, and repeatedly kneed by the police.
Carlson on Monday night asked Vizi if he was resisting arrest.
‘No, sir, not at all,’ Vizi said.
‘I get down from my truck, I went down, right on my knee.
‘I put my hands behind my head.
‘And I was waiting for them to take me away.’
Vizi said a police officer told him to ‘go back’, but Vizi replied that he was the driver of the rig.
‘Then somebody yelled, arrest him, arrest him.
‘So they dragged me in, they lied me down on my belly, and I don’t – I don’t remember how many were on top of me.
‘They were squeezing me slowly, slowly.
‘I felt like I was beaten, but I took it like a man.’
Ottawa police arrested 170 people on Friday and Saturday as they enclosed the area around Parliament Hill, describing it as a ‘secure zone’ and preventing anyone who did not live and work there from entering.
Police in Ottawa are pictured on Monday standing near the fence protecting the ‘secure zone’
Those within the zone were repeatedly asked to leave and, when they did not, Ottawa police advanced to arrest those who remained – using pepper spray and police horses at times.
By early Saturday afternoon, protesters were gone from the street in front of Parliament Hill, the collection of government offices that includes the Parliament buildings, which had the heart of the protests. It had been occupied by protesters and their trucks since late last month, turning into a carnival on weekends.
Tow truck operators wearing neon-green ski masks, with their companies’ decals taped over on their trucks to conceal their identities, arrived under police escort and started removing hundreds of big rigs, campers and other vehicles parked shoulder to shoulder near Parliament. Police smashed through the door of at least one camper on Friday before hauling it away.
The crackdown on the self-styled Freedom Convoy began Friday morning, when hundreds of police, some in riot gear and some carrying automatic weapons, descended into the protest zone and began leading demonstrators away in handcuffs through the snowy streets as holdout truckers blared their horns.
The capital and its paralyzed streets represented the movement’s last major stronghold after weeks of demonstrations and blockades that shut down border crossings into the U.S. and created one of the most serious tests yet for Trudeau.
They also shook Canada’s reputation for civility, with some blaming America’s influence.
The Freedom Convoy demonstrations initially focused on Canada’s vaccine requirement for truckers entering the country but soon morphed into a broad attack on COVID-19 precautions and Trudeau’s government.
