Process as Punishment: Prosecution of Protest
Movement lawyers Nora Fathalipour and Arash Ghiassi have their hands full defending activists targeted by Police and prosecutors, particularly in Ontario where a Hate Crimes Working Group in the Attorney General's office has an explicitly racist mandate.
Hear first hand the process police and the Crown are putting people through in order to intimidate, silence and criminalize movements. Even though most charges are dropped, the ordeal of having a publicized arrest, bail conditions and the process to clear their name can take a toll on activists. This is why having legal representation that understands the broader issues at play is so important.
Political interference and anti-Palestinian racism are setting the tone for Police and prosecutors, but the community, together, is learning how to navigate it all so our comrades can remain free to fight another day.
CALL TO ACTION:
Related Episodes:
- Support Systems Amid State Suppression w/members of the Toronto Legal Support;
- Weaponizing Canadian Law for Israel w/journalist Martin Lukacs from The Breach; and,
- The IHRA, Fascism and Upholding Colonial Violence - on Canada's adoption of the weaponized definition of antisemitism.
All of our content is free - made possible by the generous sponsorships of our Patrons. If you would like to support us: Patreon
Resources:
- The Breach: Secretive committee in Ontario ministry pushed crackdown on pro-Palestine activism
- CBC: Charges Dropped against pro-Palestinian protester
- CBC: Charges dropped against woman filmed pulling Pro-Palestinian protester's hijab
- Nora Fathalipour Bio | Nuance Legal
- Arash Ghiassi Bio — Savards LLP | Toronto Criminal Lawyers
- What is Movement Lawyering? — Movement Law Lab
Transcript
the black pasta party that they can do anything they want to us. We might not be back. I might
Speaker:be in jail. I might be anywhere. But when I leave, you can remember I said with the last
Speaker:words on my lips that I am a revolutionary. And you're gonna have to keep on saying that.
Speaker:You're gonna have to say that I am a proletarian. I am the people. I'm not the pig. You got to...
Speaker:The people are going to have to stand up against the peace. Welcome to Blueprint of Disruption,
Speaker:a podcast dedicated to building our capacity for resistance. My name is Jess McLean and
Speaker:I'll be your host for today's episode. That was Black Panther Fred Hampton you heard in
Speaker:the intro talking about pushing up against police. And as we push up against various systems of
Speaker:oppression, we are facing fierce opposition using an equally wide array of tactics. and
Speaker:one of those is the weaponization of criminal law against any form of protest. Last week's
Speaker:episode was with a member of the Orange Hats, Legal Observers in Toronto, reporting on the
Speaker:many ways in which police are trying to suppress actions on the ground and intimidate activists.
Speaker:This week we're going to look at the other side of arrests and police targeting, the
Speaker:and the political interference that spearheads it all. Arash and Nora are both movement lawyers,
Speaker:a distinction explained in the episode, and they are here to flag some very troubling trends
Speaker:indeed. Most of them coming from inside the Ontario Attorney General's Office and that
Speaker:hate crime working group we have mentioned in the past. But true to fashion, we are also
Speaker:going to learn some of the ways folks are disrupting these efforts. Because the good news is, and
Speaker:you can see this is true for yourself, despite the increasingly heavy hand being deployed
Speaker:against various movements, no one has been deterred. A contributing factor to that steadfastness
Speaker:are the legal support groups that have rallied around those most impacted by the criminalization
Speaker:of dissent, particularly those trying to end the occupation of Palestine. So let's find
Speaker:out more about these lawyers and the work that they do. not just keeping our comrades out
Speaker:of jail, but in protecting the movement as a whole. Welcome. Please introduce yourself.
Speaker:Yeah, so I'm Nora Fatt-Ali Pur. Among other things, I'm a lawyer. I primarily practice
Speaker:in criminal defense. I do consider myself a movement lawyer. I practice on my own right
Speaker:now. I'm a sole practitioner, and that has given me the freedom and flexibility to take on the
Speaker:work that I care about. which I think is part of the reason why I'm here today. And I'm really
Speaker:looking forward to discussing some topics that I think we all care about. And I mean, I can
Speaker:tell you I'm a frequent listener of the podcast. So. Oh, I'm gushing. Thank you, Nora. That's
Speaker:awesome. So, you know, you know, we've been in this before. We're kind of teasing the audience,
Speaker:but let's let Arash introduce himself before we tell people why you're here. Hello. My name
Speaker:is Arash J.S.C. I am also a criminal defense lawyer. I've also been a member of the Movement
Speaker:Defense Committee, which is an organization that's based in Toronto and has been providing
Speaker:legal supports to movements and protesters for many years now. I'm not here on any official
Speaker:capacity on behalf of the MDC, but I have represented folks who are charged in relation to protest
Speaker:for a few years. I have other cases too, but that's something that I am really passionate
Speaker:about. I went through both of your bios while I was waiting for you to join me. And they're
Speaker:not your typical lawyer bios. I don't know if you folks know that. I mean, I'm sure you do.
Speaker:So Arash, I'm going through yours first and it's first or second paragraph right there.
Speaker:It says, he feels the legal system is a place of injustice. I agree. I mean, I think there's
Speaker:a lot of people that could agree, but I don't think, you know, when they're surfing looking
Speaker:for a lawyer that they're used to getting such a candid bio. And then Nora, Nora talks all
Speaker:about power imbalances throughout her bio, how that's like one of your goals is to rectify
Speaker:as much as possible the power balances that exist. So, you know, reading through these
Speaker:bios, I know you're my people already. And I've heard such wonderful things about the work
Speaker:that you're doing, but especially how you engage with your clients. So I'll just say that, but
Speaker:we aren't going to get into specifics on many clients, but I imagine you folks, you have
Speaker:your hands full. Would you both consider yourself movement lawyers? I think I would. I know Nora
Speaker:said that she does as well. To me, that means practicing law, especially when the clients
Speaker:are part of a movement that respects their commitment to that movement. Sometimes that means practicing
Speaker:law in a way that doesn't narrowly focus on an individual client's interests, defined very
Speaker:individualistically as the legal system typically does, but their interest also in making a political
Speaker:point or contributing to a movement. Now that doesn't mean that I forget about all legal
Speaker:risks. I still have my role to advise my clients about legal risks, but I don't do it in a way
Speaker:that disempowers a client from making an informed decision on their own about what risks to take.
Speaker:Yeah. And to Arsh's point, I think I agree with everything he says. And I think the interesting
Speaker:thing about the difference between clients who are involved in the movement versus maybe some
Speaker:traditional clients is having the open-minded and flexible approach to ask them, what are
Speaker:you actually trying to achieve here? What are your goals? and not assuming that they may
Speaker:be the traditional goals of someone else who's arrested and is in the criminal justice system.
Speaker:Did they teach you how to do this in law school? This tightrope that you essentially have to
Speaker:walk between not doing any damage to your client or the movement and because how lawyers are
Speaker:typically portrayed, let's say in the media or movies, like we'll go there. is, you know,
Speaker:very focused on a win, a victory. It has a very clear definition of what that is, and it's
Speaker:like, get your client off. Get them to face no repercussions, no matter who you have to
Speaker:throw under the bus or whatnot. But this is, these people aren't facing charges under normal
Speaker:circumstances. To think that they might have other goals than just remaining free, or without
Speaker:as, as many consequences as possible, is probably not experienced by other lawyers. Do you find
Speaker:people are refreshingly surprised that you get it, that you get that there are bigger things
Speaker:at play? I think for me, you know, it's also a learning process. Arash has done this longer
Speaker:than I have. And to answer your original question, no, we do not learn this in law school. So
Speaker:it is... in some ways, an iterative process where I am, you know, moving through, thinking
Speaker:about this along with my clients and then maybe consulting with other people and thinking about
Speaker:how to achieve certain goals. So I think I've had positive feedback about that approach.
Speaker:But, you know, I'm also still learning, right? And every person is going to be different and
Speaker:their needs are going to be different. So I've been very positively. surprised, I will say,
Speaker:by how much it has enhanced my own practice and how much, how enjoyable it is to think
Speaker:broadly and deeply about how these cases not just affect my clients lives, but you know,
Speaker:what's going to be the potential impact of this going down the road. So that's been really
Speaker:rewarding for me personally. It's interesting, Jessa, you mentioned a narrow focus on wanting
Speaker:to be free. I think sometimes clients feel like they're being restricted and unfree and muzzled
Speaker:by their own lawyers, right? During the process. So I think it's important to understand what
Speaker:that desire for freedom is and that it's not limited to what a judge will impose on you.
Speaker:It's also what the process is designed to impose on you, which involves separating you from
Speaker:your community. Sometimes there are no association conditions that prevent you from associating
Speaker:with other members of the community or people who are your comrades. and to create these
Speaker:conditions where you will stop what the system deems to be an offense, right? And so I think
Speaker:when we work through that, we are trying to also preserve our clients' freedom throughout
Speaker:the process. And I'll tell you, movement lawyering is a marginalized, but storied tradition within
Speaker:the legal profession. It's not something that only arose yesterday. There are papers written
Speaker:about movement lawyering. There's a tradition, there are organizations that have been doing
Speaker:that in the US and Canada. And I was actually very lucky in that I did have a course in my
Speaker:law school. It was a seminar course and it was about movement lawyering or relationship between
Speaker:the lawyers and movements. And I really liked that. It was small. It was only a handful of
Speaker:students in that course, but I did learn a lot. Was that at Yale? It was, yes. It would have
Speaker:been bigger maybe if you have a different university. But it's interesting. I wonder if you could
Speaker:reflect on your notes from that class and the way things have changed. Because I imagine
Speaker:even as Nora's learning it, it's just very fluid. It's not even that maybe you haven't been doing
Speaker:it as long as Arash. It has been around for a long time, but I imagine that the role has
Speaker:not been the same and what you're facing has not been the same. We've told a lot of stories
Speaker:here on Blueprints of Disruption of activists facing harsh bail conditions, harassment and
Speaker:increased surveillance by the police. We've talked about the door knocking, the delayed
Speaker:charges where, you know, months will go by and you think it was just some innocent action
Speaker:and then you start getting harassed by the police for it or picked up for it. And we've also
Speaker:talked a little bit about Project Resolute. folks are like, no, I wasn't here for that.
Speaker:I will link related episodes in the show notes like I do, so because we can't cover all of
Speaker:that while we have Nora and Arash here, but I'm wondering if you folks can speak to the
Speaker:trends that have been happening over the past, perhaps, year. And I think specifically here
Speaker:in Ontario around the Attorney General's office and Project Resolute. and how these pressures
Speaker:maybe change the cases that you're facing now. Yeah, so what's interesting, I think, is looking
Speaker:at how police have essentially used movement actions in the past couple of years to continue
Speaker:to advocate for a bloated budget. I think you can see how, whether it's Project Resolute
Speaker:or other specific aspects of police. What we've seen is over the last year and a bit, the police
Speaker:response has been quite aggressive. And it appears to have the support of our local politicians.
Speaker:And in fact, I'm sure many people think police aren't doing enough, especially given how determined
Speaker:activists have been to make sure that people do not forget about the genocide in Palestine.
Speaker:I'm sure yourself and your listeners know about the hate crime unit, for example, in the Toronto
Speaker:police. And one very interesting example is, you know, the hate crime unit has existed before
Speaker:Palestine was back into focus and before this recent genocide began. But we know that the
Speaker:hate crime unit was incredibly small in the Toronto police. Now we have at least 30 officers
Speaker:involved. And in fact, the mayor of Toronto essentially demanded of Toronto police to answer
Speaker:questions about what are you doing to address what city councilors were calling the rise
Speaker:of hate crimes, right? And that's not to say that we haven't had legitimate incidents that
Speaker:perhaps are hate crimes, right? Like that does happen in our city. That's not what they mean.
Speaker:But that's not what they mean. Yes, exactly. So what's happening is what we've seen is not
Speaker:only has the hate crime unit within the Toronto police increased in man size, but their entire
Speaker:mandate was expanded. Right. Like now any action or protest that may have a connection with,
Speaker:you know, the Middle East or as people like to call it, the conflict in the Middle East,
Speaker:they automatically. fall under the hate crime units mandate now. They get these so-called
Speaker:expert police officers to oversee and make sure that these cases and charges are on track.
Speaker:And so, you know, there's many things that can be said about that, but you know, one thing
Speaker:I did, I wanna make very clear is that I think that, you know, labeling any sort of citizen
Speaker:action that may or may not be related to Palestine to me sounds like there's some anti-Palestinian
Speaker:racism here at play, right? Like, why would we automatically think that someone is hateful
Speaker:because they're involved in a protest related to Palestine? And so that is a very concerning
Speaker:trend that I think we've noticed. And I don't think we have clear answers. I don't think
Speaker:we actually have clear answers as to why is the hate crime unit. involved if someone is
Speaker:protesting genocide. Well, you're sort of being facetious, right? I imagine you know that there's
Speaker:an ulterior motive to criminalize and demonize the Palestinian solidarity movement and just
Speaker:being able to say with honesty that they're all being investigated for hate crimes, right?
Speaker:Not whether they're charged or whether there's any validity in the investigation. But then
Speaker:they can also say all of these evil, evil people that are taking to the streets every week that
Speaker:we need to control better. They are also being investigated for hate crimes, which is so damaging
Speaker:to these people, right? Have you actually had a client charged with hate crimes? I personally
Speaker:have not. I have seen many people who have been charged with what we'd call just general offenses
Speaker:that we'd see in other cases. But then, like you said, Um, the police will announce that
Speaker:by the way, we suspect this, this is a hate crime, right? We, there's, there's the language
Speaker:of hate crimes and, and to provide a little bit further context, um, you know, the way
Speaker:people are charged in the province of Ontario can be a little bit different from, from other
Speaker:jurisdictions. So what, what we have is the police actually decide whether or not to lay
Speaker:charges against a person. They have that discretion normally. So traditionally the police will,
Speaker:you know, investigate and then decide, are we going to lay charges? What kind of charges?
Speaker:And so on. There are specific offenses in the criminal code that are hate crime offenses.
Speaker:Most of those actually require the consent of the attorney general to even lay. And so they
Speaker:actually fall outside the traditional charging model that we have in Ontario, where the police
Speaker:just have the discretion to lay the charges, right? So I have not personally seen. cases
Speaker:where they have managed to get the consent of the attorney general to lay an actual hate
Speaker:crime charge. Although I'm aware it has happened a few times and I think Arash knows more about
Speaker:that. But essentially it's the police's discretion. What they do is they know they haven't charged
Speaker:that person with a hate crime. The cloud of the language of hate crime will hang over that
Speaker:individual. And then if that individual is ultimately... convicted or found guilty of an offense, the
Speaker:Crown may choose to try to prove that there were hateful circumstances that contributed
Speaker:to the offense and that could obviously be very aggravating and negative. And then the judge
Speaker:essentially decides, you know, is there evidence of that? But in many of these cases, what we
Speaker:see is that the language of hate crime is attached immediately. Someone is arrested. The Toronto
Speaker:police issues some sort of media statement about it and that the language of hate crime is attached
Speaker:immediately. So what actually happens down the road can look very different from what it starts
Speaker:out with. But yes, like you said, that carries a huge amount of stigma and stress for people,
Speaker:very understandably so. And from what I'm understanding, it can have legal repercussions even without
Speaker:that hate crime charge. Absolutely. So it's interesting. So what the police are doing is
Speaker:using hate crime really as a PR tactic. They know that they can't, it's actually not their
Speaker:job to determine whether the charge is a hate crime or not. It's either, as Nora mentioned,
Speaker:the attorney general's call or later down the line, it's the judge's call. So it's actually
Speaker:nothing official they're doing has to do with hate crime, but they insinuate this in their,
Speaker:in their press releases in a way that's very, I would say misleading. So first of all, they'll
Speaker:say these individuals are being investigated by the hate crime unit. So they're automatically
Speaker:branded with a tar of potential hate crime just because of the name of the unit that is investigating
Speaker:them, even if that unit never makes the allegation that has been a crime or that the crime has
Speaker:been hate motivated. And then they say, because the attorney general has the consent, If you
Speaker:look at all these press releases, they all have this addendum to it that says, well, more hate
Speaker:crimes may be coming later if we get the attorney general's consent. And that never happens.
Speaker:And then there's this business of potentially hate motivated. Look, every crime can be potentially
Speaker:hate motivated. That is a question that gets addressed at the tail end, at the end of the
Speaker:process when a court... reflects on the case and decides whether the sentence should include
Speaker:a premium for being hate motivated. And none of these cases so far have resulted in that.
Speaker:So it's just a disingenuous way of trying to tar the movement with that hate element that
Speaker:is not even in their mandate to do. And then the one thing Laura mentioned about a couple
Speaker:instances of actual hate crimes being
Speaker:publicized, there was the case of an individual who was charged with will for promotion of
Speaker:hatred, or sorry, for publicly inciting hatred, for waving the flag of the Popular Front for
Speaker:the Liberation of Palestine to the Marxist-Leninist party in Palestine and has been designated
Speaker:in Canada as a terrorist organization. In spite of that, doing that is actually not the same
Speaker:as publicly inciting hatred. And so three months later, the Crown had to withdraw that charge
Speaker:because, according to the Crown itself, there was no reasonable prospect of conviction. And
Speaker:at the same time, the Crown doesn't want to quite admit that, so on the record, in court,
Speaker:the Crown says, you know, police legitimately were concerned about the flag, that they could
Speaker:incite hatred towards Jewish people, and that turn-tunnels should be put on notice that flying
Speaker:the flag may well be met with further arrests. on what basis? If it wasn't a Hickman-Wyne
Speaker:case, why is it a, it could be another case. So it's just an attempt to silence legitimate
Speaker:protests. Which brings me back to that point where you talked about some people feeling
Speaker:muzzled by their lawyers on top of the conditions that they have, and any activist listening
Speaker:will understand that that's them winning. Not only is it torture for an organizer and activist,
Speaker:people who are out there to think of they can't use their voice in this moment, but it's the
Speaker:goal, right? So it's absolutely critical that folks still be able to retain a voice and work
Speaker:as a collective. Those bail conditions are, you know, go tie in with all of the other tactics
Speaker:being used to just kind of drive wedges and exhaust people. You mentioned a charge just
Speaker:being... withdrawn and I'm sure that client or that person is very relieved and I guess
Speaker:as lawyers perhaps you feel like you've done your job when that happens but can you talk
Speaker:a little bit about the impact going through court has even when charges are dropped? Yeah
Speaker:I think many of us use this language of process as punishment. In many of these cases When
Speaker:it comes to organizers and activists being charged or arrested, what they're ultimately charged
Speaker:with tend to be extremely low level offenses, right? Like very, very low level, like mischief,
Speaker:broad things that have to do with, you know, did you do a little bit of damage to property,
Speaker:things like that. And so it's not actually likely that they're going to go to jail, right? Like
Speaker:jail is reserved for the most serious offenses. But having that charge hanging over your head.
Speaker:is quite impactful. Many people don't know that when you're charged with an offense, it can
Speaker:take a little bit of while for it to go through the system, even to get ultimately to a point
Speaker:where perhaps the charges are withdrawn, right? So during that time, you're on bail conditions
Speaker:or release conditions, which may say that you can't communicate with certain people, you
Speaker:have to stay away from a certain location that is related. to where you were arrested or what
Speaker:you're accused of. And so during that time, even if your charges ultimately get withdrawn,
Speaker:you do have that cloud hanging over your head of, oh, I could potentially be breaching or
Speaker:what happens if I talk about it. People are quite cognizant of, you know, not wanting to
Speaker:hurt the movement, not wanting to hurt someone else's case potentially. It's interesting because
Speaker:I'm not sure people know, you know, people are charged with crimes every day, right? all over
Speaker:the city of Toronto and elsewhere in the province and the country. And it's not like every time
Speaker:someone is charged, there is a press release, right? But in these cases, right, when it comes
Speaker:to movement activists, we very often have seen press releases in the last year and a bit,
Speaker:right? And like Arash mentioned, in those releases, it will often mention that the hate crime unit
Speaker:is involved. It might say that a hate crime is suspected. or that further charges could
Speaker:be laid further down the road. And many times these individuals' photos are posted online,
Speaker:their names, their ages, potentially even their occupation. And so what happens is not only
Speaker:are you arrested, and for many people, this is the first time being arrested, trying to
Speaker:figure out, what do I do now? But suddenly there's this Toronto police press release, and now
Speaker:everyone knows that you're arrested. And then the reality that we're in today, what actually
Speaker:happens is that lots of people get doxed, right? They get harassed online. They get random people
Speaker:that do not know them, have no idea what the case is about, calling their employers, calling
Speaker:their families, emailing them, threatening people, calling them, you know, hateful names. And
Speaker:so there's quite a lot of harassment, unnecessary harassment that comes from just being charged
Speaker:at this point as a direct result. of these press releases. Meanwhile, the case eventually gets
Speaker:defended and all of that stuff. And as we've seen in many cases, many of them don't actually
Speaker:go to even the point of trial or a plea because it often becomes clear that there's no reasonable
Speaker:prospect of convicting that person or there's no public interest. Can I just clarify, is
Speaker:that the crown looking at the case and coming to that conclusion or does it require the-
Speaker:pressure of legal counsel as well. Like if, let's say this, those people didn't have decent
Speaker:legal representation or, you know, not none because we have legal aid, but you know, like
Speaker:they just got the short end of the stick. And would they still have tried to prosecute these
Speaker:cases or is it because of the efforts of legal counsel? Look, I think what I would say is
Speaker:it's hard to know. Sometimes It's interesting and I think we'll get to the hate crimes working
Speaker:group. I sometimes will have a local crime attorney start out with a favorable position and then
Speaker:they'll contact it by their colleague, another crown attorney from the hate crimes working
Speaker:group and suddenly that position has changed and it's now something worse, right? And so
Speaker:it's easy, it's always to your advantage to have a lawyer who can negotiate with the crown.
Speaker:Our colleagues in the legal aid system are great. They do their jobs. They only work for your
Speaker:case for one day, right? So their mandate is not to see your case from beginning to the
Speaker:end and not all of them are also movement lawyers. So that's why I think it's helpful for folks
Speaker:to be turning to movement lawyers, not to say anything negative about the quality of the
Speaker:work of our colleagues in the legal aid system. But what I want to touch on though is... how
Speaker:is the crown actually approaching these cases, right? Because we are in a moment of increased
Speaker:global repression on not just Palestine, but protests generally. We've seen astronomical
Speaker:sentences in the UK, in the US, and we don't see that here. What we see here is kind of
Speaker:uniquely comedian paternalistic response to protest that... doesn't really want to send
Speaker:you to jail for years, but wants you to accept that you were in the wrong, right? They want
Speaker:you to say, maybe you have freedom of expression, but you went too far. You took it too far either
Speaker:in what you said or how you said it, or you protested in a way that they didn't want you
Speaker:to protest. So they're demanding you to either plead guilty or to write a letter of apology
Speaker:or to go to classes. classes? What kind of classes? Re-education. There have been Jewish comrades.
Speaker:There have been Jewish comrades who have been told you have to go and take a community class
Speaker:with a pro-Israeli Jewish group. No, they didn't. To understand. Yeah. To understand that you
Speaker:have done something wrong. Right? So it's couched in a form of benevolence. That's actually a
Speaker:lot more offensive and politically demobilizing. Right? And so that's kind of- I'd rather go
Speaker:to jail. And you know, some of my clients do too. Some of my clients do too. It's that tension
Speaker:that oftentimes people are dealing with when it comes to Crown's response to these cases.
Speaker:And there's this idea in the Crown's office that there's good protests and then there's
Speaker:bad protests. But it's not very clear what's good protest, what the line is arbitrary and
Speaker:it's ever shifting. It's obvious that protests always gonna have some level of disruption,
Speaker:but you gotta keep that to a minimum. You shouldn't disrupt capitalism. You shouldn't disrupt property
Speaker:rights. And above all, you should obey the police officer when they tell you to do your protest
Speaker:in a different way, in a different location. If you don't, you've stepped over the line,
Speaker:and now you have to acknowledge that. And so that's the push and pull that often involves
Speaker:what's gonna happen to a case. And oftentimes people don't want to give what the Crown is
Speaker:asking for. And then we end up, you know, in this kind of protracted negotiations. Oftentimes
Speaker:what happens at the end of the case is the case gets dropped. But it's dragged on, as Nora
Speaker:said, it has consequences. People lose their work that people have who are regulated professionally,
Speaker:get professional, you know, the regulator on their case. And it's that. process that is
Speaker:really a problem. Yeah, I mean, I think also, you know, the Giller case is an interesting
Speaker:one here because for most of the people who were charged in relation to the protests over
Speaker:the Giller Prize, the charges were eventually withdrawn. But the timing of that is interesting,
Speaker:right? So even the timing of when those charges were withdrawn appears to be fairly calculated.
Speaker:by the actors in the system who have that power. So, you know, I think it's worth noting that
Speaker:the charges were dropped after the next Gila Prize ceremony, right? And so essentially what
Speaker:that does is prevent those same protesters from protesting the Gila Prize again. So we're saying,
Speaker:you're not allowed to go disrupt the Gila Prize, not once and certainly not twice. As a lawyer
Speaker:would be like, are you serious? Are you there again? Well, you know. Hey, you got to do what
Speaker:you got to do. I get it. But yeah, it would. You got to do what you got to do. That's exactly
Speaker:what would happen. But, you know, it's troubling. It's very, very troubling. And it has potential
Speaker:far reaching consequences. When the system is getting involved to this extent, and what is
Speaker:legitimate and not legitimate protest, obviously, I should I should mention also that there is
Speaker:another there is one person involved in the Gillip Prize case. who for mysterious reasons,
Speaker:their charges have not been dropped. So, but the way that case was handled, I think tells
Speaker:us a lot about the priorities of the system. That must be hard for the people who had their
Speaker:charges dropped to know that one of their comrades still has that hanging over them. I imagine
Speaker:that's the part of the point. Very well could be. And yes, I imagine it must be very difficult.
Speaker:And I'm not aware of the. exact, for example, continuing terms for that one individual who
Speaker:still has charges, but it might be, it might mean that they are continued to be isolated
Speaker:from the rest of the people who were involved, right? And so, and certainly, I'm sure there's
Speaker:a level of guilt associated with being able to have it acknowledged that you didn't do
Speaker:anything wrong, have your charges withdrawn, but then have one person left behind in a way
Speaker:for now. Let's just hope if they do have to go to court, it strengthens the case that they
Speaker:couldn't find reason to convict the people with them. But that is such an awful circumstance
Speaker:because I know, especially in Toronto, a lot of work has been done to create a community
Speaker:around the people who have been arrested, you know, as much as possible for resources and
Speaker:support because of the stress and all of the... issues that go with just having pending charges.
Speaker:Do you have any more examples? I mean, I don't know. I don't know if we could just like let
Speaker:that one go by the fact that Arash mentioned that people were being offered re-education
Speaker:as a means to avoid jail time. Yeah. So give me one example. There are a lot more examples
Speaker:of these kinds of re-education. I mean, there's... In the proper context, I understand why that
Speaker:might make sense. Right? So you need anger management if you had an outburst and punched somebody
Speaker:out. Right? And if you can get that kind of class and then you don't have to deal with
Speaker:your case, that's a win-win for all. But in some of these cases, we are dealing with a
Speaker:warped understanding of what antisemitism is, and then different people who are accused of
Speaker:that are then told, go and learn not to be antisemitic. and then we'll come back and talk to me, right?
Speaker:And that's where there is an issue, right? And maybe this is a time to talk about, you know,
Speaker:what antisemitism means from the Crown's perspective. And the answer is, we don't know. That's helpful.
Speaker:We tried to get clarity on that in a case and we weren't given that information. We know
Speaker:that the Ontario as a province has adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. the International
Speaker:Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition, which has been critiqued by many as conflating a
Speaker:legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. We don't know to what extent that figures into
Speaker:what the crown, how the crown views the case, but this conflation between criticism of Israel
Speaker:and anti-Semitism is very real. I personally had bizarre conversation with a Crown attorney
Speaker:who was asking me if anti-Zionism is a form of hate. And I had to explain to them, no,
Speaker:Zionism is a political ideology that many Jewish people reject, right? It's not, you are anti-Zionist
Speaker:that is not equate to anti-Semitism. And so that is a struggle that continues. You know,
Speaker:while we don't have clarity on how the police interpret this supposedly expert hate crimes
Speaker:unit, of the Polterna Police Interprets Anti-Semitism, we do know that police are getting their education
Speaker:and training from organizations that engage in this compilation. One particular organization
Speaker:was the subject of a CBC article where its own employees told CBC that the Senator's educators
Speaker:who go into parent and secondary schools are meant to report the students who voice opinions
Speaker:critical of Israel back to the organization and that anything seen as critical of Israel
Speaker:at all should be reported and that the stance of the organization is that if you're not for
Speaker:Israel then you're infeasible at it. So that's the milieu we're working in. We saw it play
Speaker:out. in court, but I guess in reverse of sorts. We talked about it just briefly on the show
Speaker:where a woman had her hijab torn off at an Ottawa protest and the person was arrested for assault,
Speaker:but had their charges withdrawn and the crown's argument there was essentially the saying of
Speaker:from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, was an incitement of hatred. I'm not
Speaker:sure what but that the accused there had reason to justification for their assault. That specific
Speaker:crime attorney who said that in court is a member of this hate crime working group, right? And
Speaker:maybe that's a good transition to talk about that group a little bit, if that's something
Speaker:you're interested in. Oh yes, great transition. So the hate crime working group is a... a group
Speaker:of about two dozen Crown attorneys from across the province of Ontario who come together and
Speaker:discuss issues with respect to hate crime. And we don't know a lot of pre-insparency about
Speaker:what their exact mandate is and what they're doing, but it's not unusual to have these kind
Speaker:of advisory groups within the Crown's office to have some kind of consistency. But what
Speaker:we see is that they... They then will confer with local crime attorneys who have carriage
Speaker:of each case, and not only on cases where there is an allegation of hate motivation. And we've
Speaker:had cases of Palestine protests in general, where even the police and the crown are not
Speaker:saying this is hate motivated, but nonetheless, this group is involved, just like the Toronto
Speaker:Police's Hate Crimes Unit is involved, to give advice about how to go about this case to the
Speaker:local crime attorney. And usually what that means is good deal off the table, we're either
Speaker:going to trial or they have to do X, Y, and Z. And so that's the group that's going on.
Speaker:And it's a group that from the information that's available to us externally appears to have
Speaker:a certain bias. Obviously the example you mentioned is one of them. I might give one more example.
Speaker:Another person who is a member of this hate crimes working group. in a court hearing was
Speaker:trying to justify the use of, you know, astronomical police resources to a judge to go after Palestine
Speaker:protesters. And he said, and I hear I have to paraphrase because I don't have the exact wording,
Speaker:but he said something like, at the time, we did not know that the protests would be largely
Speaker:peaceful. We thought there might be a full-on breach of the public order. So this is the
Speaker:mindset that's being brought to Palestine activism. Like these people are out of control. It's
Speaker:a mob. And I think as Nora said, it's hard to view that kind of mindset with anything other
Speaker:than anti-Palestinian racism. Like why expect that the fabric of society will fall apart
Speaker:because people are upset about a genocide, right? And it echoes those early tweets we got after
Speaker:October 7th, where the chief demque, chief of police... in Toronto and virtually every police
Speaker:force in Canada or at least Ontario, on that they said not only that they were monitoring
Speaker:the events in Israel, but that they were not aware of any threats to Jewish communities.
Speaker:And you would think, well, if you're not aware, why do you have to say it a hundred times that
Speaker:you're not aware of any threats? Even the mayor said it. Right? echoed that like on October
Speaker:8th or 9th. That was very upsetting.
Speaker:No, no, no. These people were gathered for very specific purpose. I imagine they were vetted.
Speaker:This wasn't some lot where they just randomly picked two dozen. You would have to imagine
Speaker:these folks believe that what they're doing is justified at some point, which means like
Speaker:they're starting from a certain mindset. I think any kind of dissenting voice wouldn't be around
Speaker:very long. I want to go back just to Just a little point of clarification. You said it
Speaker:wasn't unusual for groups like working groups to exist within the attorney general's office.
Speaker:Can you give me another example of another time they wanna make sure they're all on the same
Speaker:page? Yeah, so there is the sexual violence working group, for example. I forget the exact
Speaker:title of the working group, but it has existed for a while and it does address that issue.
Speaker:Well, they don't. They don't, they're not. Well, it's interesting. I have my other criticism
Speaker:of that group. I want to say, I mean, this is kind of off topic, and maybe you will cut it
Speaker:eventually, but I want to say it because they have said that even the complainants of sexual
Speaker:assault who want to have restorative justice, we're not going to give it to them because
Speaker:they don't recognize how bad sexual violence that they have experienced is, and restorative
Speaker:justice is not appropriate for that.
Speaker:those groups are comparable because they're not. Like you're talking about a group that
Speaker:is mandated to examining sexual assault and sexual crimes like that and protests related
Speaker:to the Middle East. Like, right? There's not a similarity there other than they both have
Speaker:massive amounts of resources being spent at, in the attorney general's office of folks trying
Speaker:to crack down. crack down on protests related to the Middle East. Like that is a clear mandate.
Speaker:You say we don't know it, but we know parts of it, right? Like that it's broad, that even
Speaker:if we were started talking about Syria or anywhere in the Middle East, like that is, are we gonna
Speaker:get that same approach? And how far of a stretch is it before they just expand that, you know,
Speaker:where it's just like any protest, any disruption, forget the Middle East, or they can have their
Speaker:own racist working group, but then we're just gonna have this ultra-fash one. they can work
Speaker:separately and go after climate. And they already go after indigenous disruptors or protesters
Speaker:or whatnot. So good grief. So they all get together. Can I assume that you folks get together to
Speaker:try to figure out how to deal with this? Does anybody try to dismantle this hate crimes unit?
Speaker:Like it feels really wrong. Like I don't, you were the folks at the legal jargon to explain
Speaker:that, but to me, it feels incredibly wrong. And it's, I think Nora's language is like,
Speaker:we could call this racist, like, no, it's kind of like explicitly racist, right? Like I think,
Speaker:is there work being done to dismantle it or are you folks just having to navigate it? So
Speaker:I have recently seen organizing groups put out requests to, you know, various political channels
Speaker:saying, you know, we're aware of this hate crime working group. In fact, we've heard... of these
Speaker:recent incidents that make us very concerned. For example, the Ottawa case that was withdrawn
Speaker:related to the person who pulled off a woman's hijab and say, can someone look into this?
Speaker:Can someone explain to us what is going on and is this conjoined by our system, by our politicians?
Speaker:Like what is going on? So I think efforts are being made, but it is very challenging when
Speaker:it's so opaque, right? We don't necessarily know exactly how the hate crime working group
Speaker:works. We don't exactly know what their goals are, where they get their marching orders from,
Speaker:what those even are. And so it's very difficult to try to actually deal with something that
Speaker:is acting like this cloud. It's a cloud that you're trying to catch, but it's just so gaseous,
Speaker:right? It's just... It has no solid form to us, right? To us, it looks like an almost at
Speaker:a distance, there's an overseeing group. And so, and I can say, I mean, there are efforts
Speaker:to see if the involvement of the hate crime working group, like the extent of that in specific
Speaker:cases, whether that can be addressed through the court system. So far, there hasn't been
Speaker:any success. mean, kind of proving political interference at some level? Exactly. Because
Speaker:I do think, you know, you mentioned project resolute early on, and I think I do want to
Speaker:be clear, like, yet, I try to use careful language when I can, right? Obviously, it's, that's
Speaker:like the, the bane of being a lawyer sometimes, as you- Lawyers and politicians. Yeah, so you
Speaker:need to add all the caveats, right? But I do think it's fair to say that this process- we
Speaker:suspect, you know, is highly politicized, right? It's a highly politicized process. And, you
Speaker:know, we didn't touch on it directly earlier, but I think it's worth mentioning. I mean,
Speaker:we know that the Toronto police is trained by Israeli police and Israeli military, right?
Speaker:They use Israeli tech a few days after October 7 in 2023, when the genocide against the Palestinians
Speaker:We had this statement issued by, I forget what they call it, it's essentially like the overarching
Speaker:larger group of all the police forces in Ontario. And they issued a statement explicitly saying,
Speaker:we recognize the right of Israel to defend itself. Right? There's no mention of civilian casualties,
Speaker:no mention of the attacks on Palestinians that had started to unfold. And so that's the starting
Speaker:point. that our police system has when it comes to these individuals is we assert the right
Speaker:of this foreign country to defend itself. At all costs too. We often get window dressing
Speaker:statements, right? Like, we'll just issue a statement and it doesn't mean anything like
Speaker:our food emergency and a homelessness emergency. We're in it, but we're just going to acknowledge
Speaker:it. But like, they back it up. They back that statement up with like a lot of politically
Speaker:damaging moves. I think... I might get it wrong. I think it was the Maple that was on the show,
Speaker:and they had covered a story, I think, pre-October 7th at the Israeli embassy and paint, red paint,
Speaker:and whatever, the back and forth was, eventually it came out that the Crown was talking directly
Speaker:to people within the embassy and that was how they secured a witness. And it was just, became
Speaker:obvious that there was contact there, because I know you can't You don't know where they're
Speaker:getting their marching orders and everyone has their own idea of who is manipulating whom,
Speaker:but yeah, incredibly frustrating. But I think obviously the defense of Israel's apartheid
Speaker:is one of the goals, right? Explicit why it's one of their goals we can all argue about.
Speaker:But defending that position has become so clearly the goal of so many politicians. I asked the
Speaker:question about pushing back as well because we are in an election period. Right? And I
Speaker:would love to be able to hear from... say the NDP, I don't know anybody on the campaign trail
Speaker:at this point that they would end Project Resolute. Like from what I've heard and then knowing
Speaker:the work that my comrades do, my vote would be dependent on somebody taking a stand on
Speaker:how this attorney general's office is being managed probably before this. I imagine like
Speaker:you guys have horror stories that date, but this is next level and project resolute, not
Speaker:only because of the police spending that it ends up being on municipalities and whatnot,
Speaker:but just the denial of our legal rights and just the manipulation and the exhaustion level
Speaker:that this must have. Like, there's a million things these folks could be doing and you folks
Speaker:could be doing than defending against charges that were never meant to be laid. The one thing
Speaker:I want to say, Jessa, is to that point, like we part of being a movement lawyer is to understand
Speaker:the limits of what you do and what actually the movement has to do and what an organized
Speaker:public has to do, right? So pushing back against something like Project Resolute is something
Speaker:that the community is doing and should be doing and it's their proper role and it's beautiful
Speaker:to see the solidarity that exists in our communities in the face of this repression. They haven't
Speaker:slowed down in their protests. We have seen people come together to support each other.
Speaker:And one of the ways that has happened is through the Toronto Community Justice Fund. And that's
Speaker:a fund that is created in the aftermath of these arrests to support all community members who
Speaker:are facing legal and other financial repercussions stemming from their criminalization that they're
Speaker:experiencing. So I recommend your listeners to go to the Toronto Community Justice Fund
Speaker:make a donation because while having these charges are scary and difficult, but when we organize
Speaker:together, we are stronger than the state. Just making a note here, my audience should know
Speaker:by now that you go to the show notes for the links of all the things that folks are mentioning.
Speaker:And yes, the Toronto Community Justice Fund will be one of them. This is not the first
Speaker:time they've heard about the good work that's happening there. Do you know of other cities
Speaker:that are as organized as Toronto when it comes to? the community that exists from police arrests.
Speaker:And I teased the folks that we had people on from the community support group. If we wondered
Speaker:if the cops knew the families they were creating, like if you thought we were tight before, I
Speaker:mean, watching these people come together post arrest, having the opposite effect that every,
Speaker:the people involved, right, the crown and the police want you to be divided and isolated
Speaker:and scared and. they might feel all these things at times, but yeah, the work that's being done
Speaker:to alleviate those harms so that folks can kind of fearlessly keep doing this work, right?
Speaker:Because these arrests will still keep happening. But I'm wondering if you know other cities
Speaker:that are starting to mobilize in this way and kind of catch up in terms of how to respond
Speaker:legally?
Speaker:has gone really far along on that road. And I think the people involved in the legal support
Speaker:committee here are doing exceptional work that I don't know if it has actually been fully
Speaker:replicated elsewhere. But what I do know is that I've definitely seen beautiful solidarity
Speaker:and community in New Brunswick, in Quebec, in British Columbia, in Ottawa. in different cities
Speaker:and people are not, I think people are trying the best to not leave anyone behind and not
Speaker:have anyone feel like they're alone in this process. So I've been incredibly impressed.
Speaker:And I think Toronto has an amazing organizing community and it's even more impressive in
Speaker:a way to see it happening in places where maybe they didn't have the, you know, similar infrastructure
Speaker:from before, right? But they're building it from the ground up. I'm going to bug you and
Speaker:ask you to put me in touch with any of those folks if you can because I really get excited
Speaker:when you hear from the smaller places because that tells you that folks can do this starting
Speaker:from nothing and build up. But they got to see examples and share victories. And hopefully
Speaker:that's what we do here. And I'm wondering, I say there's no precedent for this, but is there?
Speaker:Like you studied... I was going to say you studied movement law, but I mean, you had a seminar
Speaker:course, but you've done it for so long, Shirley, and you say there's writings on it. Have we
Speaker:been in this spot before? I think the scale is to some extent unprecedented. You know,
Speaker:I think to have a movement that persists for as long as it has, and the amount of repression
Speaker:in his face still continues to go. That's what's unprecedented. Definitely, you know, a concerted
Speaker:effort to stifle organizing is nothing new. That has existed and the community has responded.
Speaker:I know I mentioned the Movement Defence Committee. One of the big things in its history was the
Speaker:support of people for the G20 protests. That was, you know, a huge police operation and
Speaker:massive rights violation in Toronto. So we've dealt with, but that was one incident, right?
Speaker:That was just that, the G20 conference and the surrounding events, not more than a year's
Speaker:long campaign. So that's something that's historic about this moment. I love that answer. Because...
Speaker:I sometimes I you lose sight of it right when we're talking about the suppression and whatnot
Speaker:the resilience is the opposite end of that. It's it's still there and they're having to
Speaker:increase these tactics because people have not been deterred because they're so courageous
Speaker:and determined and there's nothing that will stop them. So I'm glad there's folks like you
Speaker:trying to figure out the legal side of it because it's not something we can avoid. And it is.
Speaker:perhaps what will deter people as the police state continues to build up or not, right?
Speaker:Or we can dismantle it. But you know, in the meantime, I think just knowing that movement
Speaker:lawyers exist, that there's different ways to approach this and unraveling it all perhaps
Speaker:helps people get out there and not be deterred because that is the whole point. But yeah,
Speaker:like you said, Arash, like there's really no deterring. If we couldn't do it with this,
Speaker:that, the other thing. Mind you, Poliev seems to have a few tricks up his sleeve. He said
Speaker:yesterday that he is open to deporting people accused of hate-related activities. And Trump
Speaker:has also signed an executive order to deport people for supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.
Speaker:So that could be a new twist. You would have to then start working with immigration lawyers,
Speaker:I imagine, and would have a whole new set of comrades to include in this circle of what
Speaker:we do against this kind of oppression, suppression, both. But thank you so much for taking time
Speaker:to come on here. You folks have your hands full. I can't imagine the workload that is in front
Speaker:of you right now. So just the fact that you came to spend an hour with us to unpack it
Speaker:all, I'm very grateful. and for the work that you do for the movement. It's invaluable. Like
Speaker:history will remember you for this. You're too kind, Jess. I thank you so much for having
Speaker:us. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. If
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