Hundreds protest native leader's jailing

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http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=c584b086-5884-4145-93d0-d657f4ce14c6&k=3651

Hundreds protest native leader's jailing
Geoff Nixon , Canwest News Service
Published: Saturday, February 23, 2008

More than 400 people marched on the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee, Ont. Saturday, banging drums and waving placards in protest of the jailing of a retired Ardoch Algonquin First Nation chief on charges of contempt.

Robert Lovelace, 59, was sentenced to six months in jail on Feb. 15, for his part in organizing a series of protests against a proposed uranium mining operation at a site near Clarendon Station, Ont. - about 90 kilometres north of Kingston - last year.

A private mining company, Frontenac Ventures Corporation, has begun exploring a 5,000-hectare Sharbot Lake-area site to determine if it is suitable for mining uranium.

When he and other protesters formed a "tent city" and blockade at an entrance to the site for several months last year, they were ordered to cease and desist by a provincial court.

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