2y ago

Hate crime charge dropped against Calgary man who led, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” chant

www.theprogressreport.ca

Faisal Bhabha, an associate professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto, said Cooley “should be seriously considering a civil action for malicious prosecution and unlawful detention by the police.”
“It appears there never was a basis for the charge to be laid. Any alleged basis was clearly improper and quite likely discriminatory,” Bhabha said. “The laying of the charge would have had a chilling effect on the free exercise of Charter rights in the city and across the country. Therefore, the police should investigate to determine how such an error was made.”

13 comments

It's sad that we live in a world where such harmless statements will get you charged with hate crime. Those who try to silence the opinions they don't like are the ones truly committing hate crime.
- Advocating for the dissolution of a country isn't harmless to the people living there, but I agree that it shouldn't be illegal.
  
  Stopping the oppression of Palestinian people doesn't have to mean the dissolution of Israel, the Israeli government could also just stop the oppression in the first place.
  
  I suppose occupying for sufficiently long makes it legitimate. Might is right etc etc
  
  Yes, it is. Watch, I'll do it right now:
  "I think North Korea should be dissolved."
  And yet, zero people were hurt by my advocacy.
  Canada proves they need stronger free speech protections every time anyone is arrested for "harmful" speech outside of fraud.
  
  Not what it means.
- Exactly, that's why the British were in the right for fighting the various revolutionaries across the empire. How dare they call for the dissolution of the British Raj
I'm glad this has been partially rectified, and I do hope there's a little settlement for any lost wages and a LOT of policy re-vamping here.
If he truly was supporting a cause merely of Palestinian independence - let alone a restoration of proper boundaries and safety from continued invasion - then I don't see where this is more than hate-filled prosecutorial over-reach.
In their defence, though, there's been a concerted effort to conflate a religion with a government, and that's as wrong a bandwagon for us to jump onto as much as it is disenfranchising the thousands of people living there but practicing a different system of beliefs (or none at all). It's the start to an exciting internal purge based on beliefs from a people who should know better. Personally.

13 comments