Stuff for committing a massacre in a school, calls to kill feminists and burn down universities, photo montages of Marc Lépine armed to the teeth. The posts of anti-feminist blogger Jean-Claude Rochefort sowed fear at UQAM ahead of the commemorations of the Polytechnique massacre in 2019.
Posted at 5:11 p.m.
The trial of Jean-Claude Rochefort for incitement to hatred against women opened Monday at the Montreal courthouse. According to the Crown, the 73-year-old man deliberately made hateful remarks towards women on his blog in the fall of 2019 by “praising the massacre committed by Marc Lépine” on December 6, 1989. Fourteen women died That day.
The writings and photo montages filed in evidence on Monday are particularly troubling. The author of the mass feminicide is not only depicted there as a “hero and a role model”, but as a man “larger than life”. In one of the montages, the head of the assassin is pasted on a man holding a gun. A policeman then says to him: “Do us a favor Marc, kill all these bitches”.
“They all have the devil in them. WE DO NOT SAY HERE shoot anything that moves, we say BE PREPARED,” it also read.
“The more we advanced towards December 6, the more the images were violent”, testified Monday Serge Vincelette, technician in public security at UQAM. It was he who contacted the police following the denunciation of a professor of feminist studies at UQAM.
“He talks about revenge in schools, killing women, feminists. We are targeting more cultured women, with the weapon used by Marc Lépine. We have a Marc Lépine who says: “OK girl, if it’s the way you see it, preemptive strike” [OK, fille, si c’est ainsi que tu le vois, une attaque préventive] “, enumerated Serge Vincelette.
In a post, the blogger even encourages “Marc Lépine’s followers to burn these” diabolical places [evil places]” in reference to universities. This note constituted a “threat” to the Uqamian institution, according to Serge Vincelette. Under the circumstances, UQAM has decided to increase security on the day of the commemorations.
The UQAM logo was featured in several blog posts, as were the faces of feminist studies professors Francis Dupuis-Déri and Mélissa Blais. “There was a page specifically about me: let’s insult Francis Dupuis-Déri”, testified the latter.
Photo Robert Skinner, La Presse archives
The professor of feminist studies at UQAM, Francis Dupuis-Déri
The Uqamian professor decided to contact the security of the University when he read that the blogger called for the celebration of “Saint-Marc-Lépine Day” at UQAM during the commemorations of the Polytechnique massacre.
Also targeted by Rochefort, UQAM professor Mélissa Blais sees it as a “mixture of misogyny, hatred of women and anti-feminism”. She remembers having read on the blog a “recipe on how to carry out an attack in schools”, she explained.
In the fall of 2019, Mélissa Blais participated in the coordination of commemorative events at the Polytechnique. The commemorations had to take place with “a lot of security”. Her group of women preferred to highlight the event in a bookstore, far from large gatherings.
60,000 readers
During his testimony at the release investigation – filed in evidence on Monday – Jean-Claude Rochefort did not hide being the author of the publications. Popular among incels, his blog was read by nearly 60,000 people worldwide, according to the worshiper of Marc Lépine.
In a motion for recusal filed on Monday, the defense gives an overview of the possible defense of Jean-Claude Rochefort: his blog would target “feminists” and not women in general, as the charge stipulates.
“The comments in the blogs name, in literal terms, feminists rather than women. The author even specifies that for him, there is a big difference between women and feminists. […] Is the real intention to target women in general? Is targeting feminists the same as targeting women?e Rodolphe Bourgeois. He criticizes the judge for having asserted that the blogs discussed “women in general”.
Judge Pierre Labrie, however, refused to withdraw. The defense believed the judge was incompetent to proceed with the trial after concluding that the defendant lied last week about why he did not attend jury selection. Judge Labrie also withdrew his right to a jury trial.
The trial continues on Tuesday.