This week, Montreal police charged left-wing journalist Yves Engler twice with “harassment.” First, for correctly-labelling a Zionist influencer a genocide supporter, and second, for daring to write about his arrest as a journalist.
This is an outrageous attack on the Palestine solidarity movement, and it must be fought.
Police label criticizing Zionists a crime
Boosted by the Toronto Sun, the National Post and other corporate outlets, failed talk-show host Dahlia Kurtz has emerged as one of the Israeli military’s most virulent supporters in Canadian media.
She’s busied herself, over the past fifteen months, boosting pro-Israel merchandise and labelling the people of Gaza “barbarians” who “love death.” Kurtz has also labelled pro-Palestine encampments “terrorist” camps, and repeatedly shared the names of encampment participants, knowing they could face harassment from other Zionists.
Yet, according to Montreal police, Engler is guilty of harassment—because he called Kurtz a genocide supporter online.
Engler has never met Kurtz. They reportedly live in different provinces and he doesn’t even follow her on social media.
But his criticism alone supposedly constitutes criminal harassment in the eyes of Montreal’s police.
When a petition condemning Engler’s arrest garnered hundreds of signatures, police doubled down again.
First they tried to bar Engler from publicly discussing the charges, as a condition of his release.
Then, police threatened to charge Engler additionally, with intimidation, harassment and harassing communication—because he wrote about the arrest. Supposedly, this hurt one of the officer’s feelings, and the officer felt harassed by the journalist he had in custody. As of Friday, Engler says he remains locked up in Quebec’s Bordeaux Prison.
In effect, the police are trying to use “harassment laws” to make it a crime to criticize the police. While it is unclear if these charges will stand up in court, this is a clear attack on our democratic rights.
Stop the offensive against Palestine solidarity
The charges against Engler are absurd. But they are, unfortunately, not unprecedented.
For years, the whole establishment has leveraged false accusations of antisemitism to attack the left.
Since October 2023, they’ve redoubled their efforts. They’ve stretched every imaginable legal definition to criminalize the movement—and a few unimaginable ones.
It’s telling, for example, that Kurtz’ own lawyer is Conservative candidate Neil Oberman—himself behind a series of spurious claims against McGill University last spring aimed at shutting down pro-Palestine speakers and protests.
Elsewhere, Pro-Palestine protesters have faced dubious “hate crime” charges for denouncing Indigo Books’ ties to the Israeli military. Student protestors have faced “trespassing” charges for protesting on their own university’s grounds. And, Samidoun—a support network for Palestinian political prisoners—has been labelled a terrorist entity for opposing Israel’s campaign of terror in Gaza.
Behind the supposed impartiality of the police, the courts, the law, and the state, lay the interests of Canada’s ruling class. Canada’s imperialist ruling class is one of Israel’s most loyal allies. The Canadian state, its police, and its courts, exist to defend the ruling class’ interests—not ours.
We’re told we live in a democracy where freedom of expression is inviolable. In reality, these rights and freedoms exist only insofar as we don’t use them in a manner that threatens the interests of the rich and powerful. No resource is spared to shut down Palestine solidarity—and no charge or slander is too ridiculous.
The Revolutionary Communist Party stands in solidarity with Yves Engler. We condemn the attempts to censor his writing by the police. And we call on the labour movement in Canada and Quebec to mobilize to defend the right to support Palestine from vicious and spurious attacks like these.
