Police investigating pro-Hamas chants
‘There is a difference between peaceful protest and hateful intimidation,’ Trudeau says
Ottawa police say they are investigating an allegation of hate speech that has emerged from a weekend protest on Parliament Hill.
Police say they received complaints about some of what was said during a pro-Palestinian demonstration Saturday about the IsraelGaza war. The protest featured demonstrators with Palestinian flags and placards calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
One video posted online includes the voice of a man praising the attack by Hamas and affiliates that killed 1,200 people in Israel.
Police say officers with the department’s hate crime unit have opened an investigation.
Threats of violence and other unlawful conduct are not protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which enshrines Canadians’ right to free assembly.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre have both condemned the glorification of the October attacks.
“Our resistance attacks are proof that we are almost free,” a man can be heard saying in the video from the protest.
“Oct. 7 is proof that we are almost free. Long live Oct. 7, long live the resistance, long live the intifada, long live every form of resistance.”
Intifada is an Arabic word with meanings that include shaking off oppression. In English, it is most commonly associated with two periods of particular intensity in the Israel-Palestine conflict, which included a series of attacks by Palestinian terrorist groups on public venues inside Israel.
“There is a difference between peaceful protest and hateful intimidation,” Trudeau wrote Sunday on X.
“It is unconscionable to glorify the antisemitic violence and murder perpetrated by Hamas on Oct. 7. This rhetoric has no place in Canada. None.”
Poilievre also called out the messages that were on display Saturday, which he described as “malicious.”
“I condemn these pro-genocide, antisemitic chants,” the Conservative leader said.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh later joined in. “I unequivocally condemn those who chant things that are incendiary, hateful and that glorify Oct. 7’s terror and death,” he posted Monday.
The federal special representative on combatting Islamophobia denounced the comments as “problematic,” but stressed they are a minority view.
“A few individual protesters engaged in problematic speech; this is unacceptable and contrary to our shared values,” Amira Elghawaby wrote on X.
“What is also concerning are deliberate efforts to smear all protesters with one brush, suggesting that anyone calling on Canada to uphold and protect international humanitarian law is aligned with terrorism.”
The protest featured demonstrators brandishing Palestinian flags and placards