Concern grows over anti-immigration rally organizers
Online posts focus on death of protester killed in Charlottesville, Va.
A group linked to an anti-immigration rally Saturday in Vancouver is using social media to celebrate the death of a woman killed by a white supremacist at a rally last weekend in Charlottesville, Va.
The upcoming rally outside Vancouver City Hall is organized by the Worldwide Coalition Against Islam’s Canadian chapter (WCAI Canada), as well as the Cultural Action Party of Canada (CAP), according to an event Facebook page.
Saturday, after protester Heather Heyer was mowed down and killed by a car allegedly driven by James Alex Fields Jr. at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, one of the Vancouver rally’s organizers — a man using the name Chadd Beneteau on Facebook — shared a meme on his personal page with the message “GOOD NIGHT LEFT SIDE” that depicts the same make and model of car that killed Heyer and injured other protesters.
The group behind that meme, WCAI USA, also posted a video clip to its Facebook page of the car striking protesters with the comment: “Finally Antifa got what they deserved. For too long they have been going to patriot rallies and pestering people causing violence when people just want a peaceful protest.”
WCAI USA claimed it does “not condone violence like this, but we can understand why it has come to this.”
CAP founder Brad Salzberg said that while he plans to speak at Saturday’s event, he isn’t aware of and doesn’t share all of the views of the WCAI groups.
“I can’t really speak for them,” he said. “They’re putting on the rally, I’m scheduled as a speaker.”
Salzberg added that it would be wrong to imply that he is “completely on-board” with whatever WCAI has to say at the event.
He admonished the violence that occurred in Charlottesville and said his focus for Saturday’s rally will be Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s agenda related to multiculturalism.
Salzberg said he doesn’t “believe in racial supremacy of any form” and said his group wants to represent people who want to “promote and maintain the European and Canadian identity of Canada,” but not necessarily dominate in any way.
Just 18 people had indicated they were “Going” to the Vancouver rally on the event’s Facebook page by deadline. Far-right group Soldiers of Odin is also expected to attend.
“What’s disturbing now is to see this constellation coming together,” said Barbara Perry, an expert on hate crime at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. “If you look at the Vancouver (event), there’s at least four groups, that I’m aware of, coming together in that. I think that’s where the danger lies, when they begin to reinforce one another and sort of pump one another up.”
Perry said this phenomenon seemed to be behind the violence in Charlottesville, which drew various groups of people attracted to the potential of participating in both defensive and offensive violence.
She said some groups seem to aspire to CAP’s status as a registered political party and said she would expect CAP to distance itself from those who are outwardly condoning violence.
But while groups such as those linked to the alt-right movement may not “want to get their hands dirty, you can’t dissociate yourself from the messaging” of the “shock troops” such as the neo-Nazis and skinheads who bring weapons to U.S. rallies, Perry added.
Lisa Descary, who is helping organize the Oppose the Racists in Metro Vancouver counter protest Saturday, said she believes the threat of danger will be mitigated by the thousands of people she expects to join her group.
“But we are taking precautions, obviously,” she said.
Descary said the group is working with people who have done security work in previous marches and protests, as well as experts in de-escalation and safety.
Counter protesters will be discouraged from getting too close to the protesters or reacting to any attempt by protesters to bait them into violence, she said.