(Ottawa) Ottawa police announced Monday that they are investigating an allegation of hate speech during a pro-Palestinian demonstration over the war between Israel and Gaza, which was held Saturday on Parliament Hill.
The police force says it has received complaints regarding certain comments made during this gathering.
This included demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and signs calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
But in a video posted online, a man is heard praising the October 7 attack by Hamas and its affiliated groups, which killed 1,200 people in Israel.
“Our resistance attacks are proof that we are almost free,” one man says in the video. October 7 is proof that we are almost free. Long live October 7, long live the resistance, long live the Intifada, long live all forms of resistance. »
Police said officers from the hate crimes unit had launched an investigation.
Threats of violence are not protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which enshrines Canadians’ right to free assembly.
Mr. Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre both say such comments are unacceptable.
In a message on the social network X on Sunday, Mr. Trudeau described certain speeches as “unacceptable” and “hateful intimidation”.
The prime minister wrote that there was “a difference between peaceful protests and hateful intimidation.”
“It is unacceptable to glorify the acts of anti-Semitic violence, including the murders, that Hamas committed on October 7. This kind of speech has no place in Canada. Absolutely not,” said Mr. Trudeau.
Mr. Poilievre also denounced the “malicious” messages heard on Saturday. “I condemn these progenocidal anti-Semitic chants,” declared the conservative leader.
“Intifada” is an Arabic word whose meanings include getting rid of oppression. In English, it is most often associated with two periods of particular intensity in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which included a series of attacks by Palestinian terrorist groups on public places in Israel.