Trying to Silence Yves Engler
Episode 173
Journalist and Activist Yves Engler discusses the charges against him, the very thing Montreal Police tried to stop him from doing.
As Yves tells the story of his arrest and the five days he spend in jail fighting suppressive bail conditions, he reflects on the supports he received, Canada's history of attacking activists, and the deeper issues surrounding incarceration.
During the interview with Host Jessa McLean, Yves uses the phrase 'Zionist Lawfare' to describe the ways in which Canadian Law was weaponized against him at the behest of Pro-Israeli figures.
END SONG CREDIT: David Rovics, What's Going on Here Montreal? (2025)
Related Episodes:
- Process as Punishment, an interview with Movement Lawyers on the tactics used by Police and Prosecutors against Palestinian solidarity activists in Ontario;
- Watching Cops, a Toronto-based legal observer from the Orange Hats provides insight into the shifts in Policing protests over the past year and a half; and,
- Blockades and Bail Conditions, an Indigenous Palestinian Solidarity activist talks about their experience being arrested at an action and the use of bail conditions to intimidate and sideline them.
Resources:
- Repression of anti-war voices an old Canadian story - Yves Engler
- PEN Canada letter to Mayor and Police Chief of Montreal regarding Yves Engler
- Yves Engler - Canadian Author and Activist
All of our content is free - made possible by the generous sponsorships of our Patrons. If you would like to support us: Patreon
____________
Transcript
Greetings, my name is Jess McLean and you're listening to Blueprints of Disruption, a podcast
Speaker:that encourages folks to challenge the status quo, hold the powerful accountable, and of
Speaker:course disrupt. Our next guest spends most of his days doing exactly that. Eve Engler has
Speaker:been a staple in Canadian politics for years and has never really tread lightly. In the
Speaker:past 16 months, he's been best known for being one of the only journalists out there pressing
Speaker:leaders of all the parties about their positions on Palestine. And of course, you may have heard
Speaker:his name even more frequently in the past week or so, following his arrest by Montreal police.
Speaker:Eve isn't the first arrestee we've heard from here on Blueprints. Our regular listeners will
Speaker:recognize some of these tools of suppression. but there's also plenty that sets his arrest
Speaker:apart from the other activists we've interviewed. This was a brash move by Montreal police and
Speaker:by the Crown, who seemingly acted at the behest of one of the more vile social media personalities
Speaker:out there who's working alongside a conservative candidate. While Yves shares just how he coped
Speaker:with all the twists and turns in his case, he also of the systemic issues related to incarceration.
Speaker:This case also garnered a lot of attention globally. At the end of this episode is a folk song written
Speaker:about the occasion and that wasn't all. Between the thousands of letters and jail support and
Speaker:all the other forms of solidarity, Eve felt it and he shares how he thinks it impacted
Speaker:the outcome we were all hoping for. So sit back and soak up some of these shocking details
Speaker:of the latest case of Zionist lawfare being deployed against Palestinian solidarity work
Speaker:and failing epically. Welcome back. In case anybody doesn't know, can you please introduce
Speaker:yourself to the audience? Yeah, Yves Engler, Dujage Manchel based author, activist, been
Speaker:involved in mostly international solidarity kind of activism for, I guess, 25 years. Some
Speaker:student union politics, some anti-corporate globalization movement stuff back 20, 25 years
Speaker:ago, but mostly sort of Palestine, Haiti, anti-war kind of writing and activism. We've leaned
Speaker:on your writings and your work a few times for this show, so I'm guessing most of our audience
Speaker:has benefited from your writings before. Certainly the Canadian state has not. I imagine what
Speaker:you write about played a large part in what happened to you. In case you missed it, Eve
Speaker:spent five days in jail and why he was in there is open to interpretation. The police will
Speaker:likely tell you one thing, Eve will tell you another, and everyone else will have their
Speaker:own opinion. But Eve, what were you charged with? What did the police initially come to
Speaker:you and say you had done so wrong that they were going to haul you in? Yeah, the police
Speaker:called me Tuesday of last week, and the police inspector called me and said that they were
Speaker:going to be charging me. She asked me to come in the next day because they wanted to charge
Speaker:me with... harassing Dalia Kurtz, who is a well-known media, anti-Palestinian media personality.
Speaker:And the harassment was responding to her posts on X. And as I wrote about immediately, guilty
Speaker:as charged, I responded, I referred to as a fascist, genocide Dalia and other kind of snarky
Speaker:political responses. And I've never met her. I've never... emailed her, never messaged her,
Speaker:never talked to her. I don't even follow her on X. She could have blocked me. About seven
Speaker:months ago, she said, she made this declaration, quote tweeted me from a tweet five or six days
Speaker:earlier that I'd posted and said, stop harassing me, this is your last chance. You are harassing
Speaker:me, I am feeling threatened. She did this on X. And as someone posted right away saying,
Speaker:why don't you block him? That's... a mechanism on X. If you don't want him to respond to your
Speaker:messages, block him. She was obviously setting up the terrain for a legal or policing battle
Speaker:at that point. And we know that she did then go to the Montreal police. Then I publicized
Speaker:this. I wrote about it. I wrote an article for my site, posted it on different platforms.
Speaker:And there was an action alert. We shared it widely. Yeah, calling on the police. not to
Speaker:drop the charges. And thousands of people, by the next morning, thousands of people had emailed
Speaker:the police inspector. The police's response to my writing about it and this action alert
Speaker:being shared was to basically throw the book at me or double down. And now they said, I
Speaker:was harassing the police. And they brought in four different charges saying I was harassing
Speaker:the police. They come in the next day. to be arrested for harassing the police and for harassing
Speaker:Dalia, allegedly. The police in general or a specific officer? A specific officer that was
Speaker:the... Because we probably harass the police all the time, all of us do, and all of us make
Speaker:snarky comments to Zionists on the internet. I don't know how many people have called a
Speaker:fascist. I don't have your profile, but this is not unusual behavior. I mean... or criminal
Speaker:behaviour. It's not unusual behaviour and we now know that the police actually initially
Speaker:interviewed Dahlia in the summer and opened the file and looked, I guess, at my ex and
Speaker:whatever evidence she brought them and then closed the file. The Crown told us it's at
Speaker:a court and then there was pressure brought by Neil Obermann, a Conservative Party candidate
Speaker:here in Montreal, a lawyer, his law firm sent a letter. and then they reopened the file and
Speaker:then two months later I was charged. But the actual main thing here is, is that I didn't
Speaker:go to jail for anything to do with the charges against me. I went to jail because the crown
Speaker:or the police initially, and this right away, they were told, it was told to my lawyer on
Speaker:the Tuesday. The initial inspector said it would take 15 minutes. I would go to the station,
Speaker:when it was just a Daliakurtz charge, I'd go to the station. They would charge me, they
Speaker:would arrest me, presumably I would do my fingerprints, and they would let me go if I agreed to the
Speaker:conditions. They told my lawyer, she didn't tell me this initially, but she told my lawyer
Speaker:that when he called after, she called me, that the condition would be that I don't talk about
Speaker:Dahlia Kurtz. In effect, I don't talk about the case. I am, of course, was absolutely unwilling
Speaker:to agree to not talk about the case. And the condition could be for, you know, the Crown
Speaker:could drop the dropped the charges two weeks later, so the condition could have only been
Speaker:for two weeks, but it also most likely could have been for a year or however long until
Speaker:the whole case got dealt with. I guess it could even be two years. So I was absolutely unwilling
Speaker:to accept that condition. So effectively, I spent five days in jail because initially the
Speaker:police and then the
Speaker:And I should note that once we actually had the bail hearing late on the Monday, after
Speaker:presenting myself at the detention centre on the early Thursday, we didn't even actually
Speaker:have to present our defence. Because as the Crown was making the argument for this condition,
Speaker:the judge, in part, I think because there was so much solidarity, so much support in the
Speaker:courtroom, and more broadly, the judge basically got their head around what was actually being
Speaker:asked by the crown, which was to just completely muzzle me. So you could have a situation where
Speaker:this pro-genocide influencer is able to convince the police to abuse state authority on behalf
Speaker:of Israel's genocide, and then the person who's being targeted is not even able to respond
Speaker:publicly to this. So it was very obviously... the you know an infringement on free speech
Speaker:but an infringement on free speech in service of genocide. And so the judge basically forced
Speaker:the crown attorney to concede to what I had agreed to immediately. I was willing to say
Speaker:right away on the Tuesday that I would not respond to Dahlia Kurtz on social media anymore. Effectively
Speaker:what I did was I just blocked her myself. Something she could have done seven months ago. I blocked
Speaker:her myself. So now she won't appear in my feed. Well, she could. The way X is designed, there's
Speaker:folks that still end up on my feed, even though I've blocked them. So there's just, you wouldn't
Speaker:go after her directly. Exactly. So I was willing to do that right away. And the police and the
Speaker:crown, they abuse their power. Obviously, it's also a big, it's really costly to put someone
Speaker:in jail. You have to be careful. from a sample of public resources that whatever thousands
Speaker:of dollars that were spent on this would have been much better used for all kinds of lots
Speaker:of people who could use a place to stay in the cold and there's lots of people who could use
Speaker:counseling and all kinds of other more socially useful things. But basically the police, I
Speaker:don't think, I think obviously Dalia Kurtz and Neil Obermann did all this because they saw
Speaker:me as a threat to... you know, Canadian complicity in genocide. I don't actually think the police
Speaker:initially were doing this with what we call sort of a broader political intent. I think
Speaker:actually, funnily, the inspector was maybe just kind of like, oh, I got pressured from this
Speaker:like law firm that's this conservative party candidate. I'm just kind of like move this
Speaker:file along, you know, the crown might drop it or just kind of, I don't. So that's, I think,
Speaker:more likely of their initial reaction. But then the police's reaction to me writing about it,
Speaker:now that's a whole other thing. Then it was basically there, we're asserting our authority.
Speaker:How dare you challenge our authority? And the other part, and I don't think that they would
Speaker:have been able to, they wouldn't have brought four charges unless the hierarchy of the policing
Speaker:structure. wanted to, oh, okay, now we have an opportunity to make Engler's life difficult,
Speaker:or he's been annoying, or how exactly they formulate that themselves. And so then that becomes the
Speaker:institution of the SPVM, Montreal police, taking a very clear political act. But I don't know
Speaker:this, but I don't actually think the first phase is as much of that, like, we want to get Eve
Speaker:as it is just kind of a connection to Zionist lobbying and just kind of like, oh, we'll just
Speaker:move this along and that, but I don't know. But it's like, it's you, Eve. It's like, who
Speaker:thought that they could make you stay quiet? So they had to know whatever they did to you
Speaker:would get amplified, whether you did it or somebody else did it. It was just like, there was no
Speaker:way they were just going to be able to like, oh, this will just shut the law firm up. It
Speaker:was going to create a problem for them. And just from reporting what's happening to Palestinian
Speaker:solidarity activists here in mostly Toronto but Ontario and the way that there is the hate
Speaker:crimes working group within the attorney general's office that coordinates with the hate crimes
Speaker:police forces and things like Project Resolute and they're actually coordinating with each
Speaker:other to torment activists Right, with the same bullshit, not the same charges, cause this
Speaker:is just next level, I think, the ridiculousness of both sets of charges, but just the idea
Speaker:of laying charges with no real concern on whether there'll be a conviction or not, because, you
Speaker:know, your name gets smeared and you know, you end up with bail conditions that make your
Speaker:life miserable. Their goal is often to then nail you on breach. Right? Like, go ahead,
Speaker:agree to not write about this, but I know you're going to. I know you're going to slip up. You're
Speaker:going to say something in an interview that's going to get you, and we will get you on breach,
Speaker:and then we'll really be able to lock you down. These are tactics that have been deployed on
Speaker:Palestinian solidarity activists in Canada, in Ontario, for like a year now. So the methodology,
Speaker:like, doesn't surprise me at all, but I think there is always a broader... political because
Speaker:they had to have known it would have brought up the political, right? That it wasn't just
Speaker:going to be another charge on the sheet that day, that this guy was going to make noise
Speaker:about it, right? And we know so because that's why we're trying to ask him for these bail
Speaker:conditions. And one of the advice we give our audiences is to do what you did is to hold
Speaker:on as long as possible to get some of these ridiculous bail conditions in front of— justice
Speaker:of the peace or a judge or somebody at least get it on record. And often some of them are
Speaker:seen as what for what they are and they don't become a problem. But five days that's quite
Speaker:a bit to stay in there. We very much appreciate you doing that. I can understand from a personal
Speaker:level and a values based level why you wouldn't want to sign on to those conditions. But you
Speaker:also realize by not signing those and making this stand that was for the entire movement,
Speaker:particularly in Canada, right, and sending a message not just to authorities, that shit
Speaker:wouldn't be taken lightly, but to all the other activists out there, right? And if you can
Speaker:hold on, if you can challenge these bail conditions, it's worth it in the end, because they're very
Speaker:suppressive. We've had folks in Ottawa. At least five of them, it sounds like, had numerous
Speaker:charges and awful bail conditions that essentially just took them right out of the movement. They
Speaker:can't contact one another, they can't attend Palestinian protests is a common condition
Speaker:put on folks. So, we're very much appreciative. It didn't take you out of the fight and you
Speaker:were able to fight those conditions, but it kind of set a precedent for folks and an example
Speaker:to follow. Did you feel that pressure as well? You have a family, you want to get home to
Speaker:them. Five days is a long time to sit and stew and be away from your littles and your loved
Speaker:ones. But there's bigger game at play, isn't there here? Yeah, there's definitely a big
Speaker:game. I obviously understood the conditions fight as a broader fight. I have to say, and
Speaker:I've know many of the examples you're talking about Ottawa, I heard stories about Toronto
Speaker:and stuff like that. I didn't understand this conditions question of like the no talking
Speaker:about it. as becoming basically the standard that the Crown here was pursuing. That's, I've
Speaker:only learned about that as part of dealing with this. And I had like lawyer send a judgment
Speaker:that basically made it really clear this was unconstitutional. A previous judgment? A previous
Speaker:judgment. So we used that. Because going public, then people heard about this and then were
Speaker:able to assist my lawyer in responding to this condition. So I was very, you know, obviously
Speaker:happy that that, you know, kind of, I've been able to, you know, this condition is now put
Speaker:under much more public attention and it's going to be harder for the Crown to pursue it. I
Speaker:have to say my initial reaction when I got the phone call from the police officer and the
Speaker:first thing is my initial reaction was to like... argue, which is probably not, legally speaking,
Speaker:not the right thing to do. It's probably your best thing is just to listen to them. Shut
Speaker:the fuck up, right? That's the advice. Shut the fuck up. Right. My personal political inclination
Speaker:was to be outraged at like, what are you like, are you kidding me? You're going to like this,
Speaker:this like genocidal like maniac is coming to like, stop me from being able to respond to
Speaker:her open racism. And you know, she, Delia Kurtz is like promoting these neo-Nazis calling for
Speaker:mass deportation, right? She's like, Totally, she's not in this sort of like, I don't know,
Speaker:the hard Zionist mainstream. She's off into like a different territory of kind of far right
Speaker:kind of politics. But anyways, so that was, but my actual initial concern condition wise
Speaker:was a condition of keeping the peace. They were gonna bring that. And my reasoning for that
Speaker:of course, is because I go to lots of press conferences where sometimes you have to get.
Speaker:You have to get in. That's why I'm laughing. You could not keep the peace. Yeah, you have
Speaker:to get in ways that you, that the police, if the police know I have that condition, that
Speaker:they can be like, ah, Eve. That's such a broad interpretation too of disrupting the peace,
Speaker:right? Like that's, that could be anything. That could be a dog squeak toy. Exactly, so
Speaker:in that, and I'm saying, you know, my lawyer was kind of like, well, that's a standard condition.
Speaker:You don't want to get into a fight on that. That's pretty standard. So he was actually,
Speaker:his initial reaction was kind of like, man, don't fight that too much. Now, of course,
Speaker:when he heard the condition of the silence, then he immediately counseled me. I was already
Speaker:clearly not going to do that, but he immediately counseled not to do that. But so that was actually
Speaker:my initial condition, concern. But yeah, I mean, clearly there's this need for public campaigning,
Speaker:public pressure, obviously a legal side to it as well, of just being, you know, challenging
Speaker:the whole kind of architecture of police and Crown using their leverage in moments of vulnerability.
Speaker:with people and imposing different conditions that obviously have massive political implications.
Speaker:So yeah, it's good that this may undermine that. I hope obviously this undermines that. And
Speaker:also there's obviously the more specific side to the kind of Zionist lawfare element to
Speaker:you know, kind of worked on as well. I'm writing that down. A Zionist lawfare. That's a new
Speaker:term for me. I know exactly what it means, but we've seen a lot of that, right? Where charges
Speaker:that would never have been levied and a lot of disrupting charges and mischief charges
Speaker:for simply standing in the street, like things that will never end up in, for sure, jail time,
Speaker:let alone a conviction. And you mentioned, you know, maybe a couple of weeks. But we've got
Speaker:plenty of examples where these conditions plague people for a year or more. And many, many are
Speaker:getting picked up on breach because of the way they can be interpreted. So yeah, movement
Speaker:lawyers are working on it, but it's hard to keep in front of them because the way the Crown
Speaker:and the police are operating is like ever-changing, ever-escalating, it seems like. I think to
Speaker:take a journalist... I was going to say off the streets, but they politely called you in,
Speaker:which is a tactic that they use, right? It's they'll kind of haunt you with phone calls
Speaker:first to try to get you to come in, but so that you don't get picked up where you don't want
Speaker:to get picked up, you know, in front of your family, maybe in front of your employer. But
Speaker:five days you spent in there, I see people commenting when you were released, I can't remember who,
Speaker:whether it was maybe Alex Terrell that mentioned it, but that you had pages and pages of handwritten
Speaker:articles. What were you writing about while you were in there? Where was your mind at?
Speaker:Well, I got really lucky. On the Thursday night when we got brought to the prison, to Bordeaux
Speaker:prison, there happened to be one of those really small pencils sitting on a table with a couple
Speaker:of these forms that you're supposed to fill in if you want to have some request for the
Speaker:prison authorities. And the moment I didn't realize how lucky I'd gotten. in getting the
Speaker:pencil, but I basically, I then had a pencil, which I should say the, one of the other prisoners
Speaker:who kind of like ran the area I was in, ran in quotations, tried to get it from me at one
Speaker:point, I pushed back and a guard tried to, sort of tried to get it from me at one point, I
Speaker:pushed back on that as well. And basically, so I then had a pencil, which, which it was
Speaker:difficult to get paper, I had to rip up this big brown bag that they gave us to keep our
Speaker:stuff in. And, but, but yeah, I was able to write. And so I wrote about, I wrote about
Speaker:some of the stuff, you know, the experience I haven't published most of it. I haven't published
Speaker:yet, uh, cause I've been so busy, but, um, I wrote about, I was, you know, things, even
Speaker:things like a, some, just about a general letter about Trump, Canada, foreign policy kind of
Speaker:thing, a couple of letters about a couple of articles about elements, like there's a history
Speaker:here. I just submitted one of them. Uh, the, the CESAS has been targeting. Palestine solidarity
Speaker:for decades, right? There's books, I talk about in my Canada and Israel book, where like the
Speaker:communication security establishment, the Canada's version of NSA, had like PLO and Arafat as
Speaker:part of their names, this is going back to like the 70s, where they were signals intelligence.
Speaker:And as then, you know, so they've been compiling, you know, information on Palestine related
Speaker:and passing that to Mossad. There's a whole history of Mossad using Canadian passports
Speaker:in their assassinations in the early 70s and in the most infamously in Jordan against Machal,
Speaker:the head of Hamas's political bureau at that point, they poisoned him and then the Israeli
Speaker:agents got caught and they had to give the antidote and they were using Canadian passports and
Speaker:it became a bit of a diplomatic scandal. So there's a, I'm kind of fitting the recent targeting
Speaker:of... myself specifically, but then over the past 16 months into a longer history of the
Speaker:Canadian security intelligence agencies targeting of Palestine activism. And obviously that's
Speaker:one of Canada's contributions to Zionism or Palestinian dispossession, that element of
Speaker:the relationship. So stuff like that and some stuff about just kind of the... framing, like
Speaker:my initial tweets and messaging about the framing of the victory, of victory for free speech
Speaker:and stuff like that. Yeah, and I think I ended up writing seven articles or something like
Speaker:that. It was also like, you know, I didn't know if I would be able to get them out. I wasn't
Speaker:actually sure. I told the prison guard when I was, that these were like part of my defense,
Speaker:and he was actually quite skeptical. So he was, I was able to keep the articles. He put it
Speaker:in an envelope, so I thought it was a chance that I would just lose all my work. But it
Speaker:was also, I think, you know, it was healthy also to just sort of to do something. And that's
Speaker:one of the things to see in jail, how much... There's a lot of distress, like this is kind
Speaker:of remarkable how much distress people were under. And honestly, the kind of reaction to
Speaker:the situation, I don't think was very healthy. Like a lot of people were just like... stay
Speaker:in bed all day. And I tried to follow very clear, wake up in the morning, go to bed at 10 o'clock,
Speaker:whatever, right? And to sort of, obviously the writing helped in kind of stabilizing things
Speaker:for me and making the time kind of more pleasant and less difficult. But yeah, so it was a mix
Speaker:of that. And then obviously put a lot of political things that I want to write about and have
Speaker:come out. some incredible showing of solidarity for your case. I don't know, I imagine you've
Speaker:seen it now, the video from Roger Waters, you even mentioned it in your thank you letter
Speaker:on your website, a folk song written about you or about your case. And you know thousands
Speaker:of letters, the tweets, the uproar, were you feeling any of that on the inside? How did
Speaker:you feel support in there? Or were you just hoping it was all happening? I was, I was hoping
Speaker:it was happening. And, and, you know, probably my, what am I, what am I kind of the lowest
Speaker:moment in the jail was, was basically that feeling like there was a whole bunch of things that
Speaker:I should have done before coming in to facilitate more kind of like campaigning and that there
Speaker:was like, sort of like some communication things with regards to my phone. I should have given
Speaker:it to somebody like give it to my dad. I should have given it to Alex Treelish. few communication
Speaker:things I should have, things that got going to, to help kind of like engender more, uh,
Speaker:kind of uproar. They did a good job without it, didn't they? People did a great job without
Speaker:it. I saw it obviously on Friday, um, at the court, I'm on video from the prison. You could
Speaker:see people in the courtroom. So I knew that right, right there. Now that obviously, um,
Speaker:that, that was, um, it lifted my spirits. I didn't see it on the Monday morning. I was
Speaker:told that like a hundred, a hundred plus people showed up on the Monday morning, but it was,
Speaker:it was very concrete in its, well, I can't prove this, but very likely it helped for two different
Speaker:ways in the, in the, how the judge dealt with it because they didn't send me on the Monday,
Speaker:despite myself going to the prison guards at seven 30 morning and saying like, why haven't
Speaker:I been sent to the, the courthouse? which is downtown, the prison's about 45 minutes away,
Speaker:why haven't I been sent downtown when my court's happening today? And they said, no, it's tomorrow.
Speaker:And so apparently there was some sort of error in the date sent. I don't know if this error
Speaker:was, you know, it actually was an error, how the whole process played out. I'm told it really
Speaker:was on the side of the court clerk. They didn't write, they wrote the wrong day. If that happened
Speaker:in my case, it probably happens Fairly often then. It does to Palestinian solidarity activists.
Speaker:Yeah. Okay, well, so if you have other examples of that, yeah. We do, yeah. Yeah. But what
Speaker:the turnout did is that basically the judge called, I don't know if it was actually the
Speaker:judge or their assistant, but the judge pressed to call the prison. And so suddenly at 11 o'clock,
Speaker:so after it's 7.30 in the morning, just after that I'm told, like, no, it's tomorrow. And
Speaker:I'm kind of confused and I'm like... Initially, you're kind of like, oh, are they going to
Speaker:try to keep me in here forever? And then after a few minutes of thinking that, I just go,
Speaker:OK, well, I got 24 more hours. Just go back to my routine and sit down and start writing.
Speaker:And then suddenly at 11 o'clock, all of a sudden, it's like emergency. The prison guards come
Speaker:in. Engler, get all your stuff. Like, get your underwear on. I got to go, go. And so basically,
Speaker:the judge had either directly or with their assistant said, what's going on here? He has
Speaker:to be in court today. And I'm pretty confident that if there's no one in the room. the judge
Speaker:does not take the time to press that to get down. And then, and so I think that was a very,
Speaker:like that solidarity was very concrete and helping get out, at least helping get out 24 hours
Speaker:earlier. But then the bigger thing I think was that the presence led to the judge taking the
Speaker:time to think about what was actually being asked with this condition, right? That this
Speaker:wasn't just like. oh, okay, this is just a pro forma condition. Yeah, he's accused of harassing
Speaker:somebody. And so, yeah, we just don't want him to talk because that could be viewed as harassment
Speaker:and just move it along. And so then I think that the presence in the room and the judge
Speaker:was very clear about it. And then all the prison guards, you know, I got mentioned repeatedly
Speaker:by different prison guards that there's all these people waiting for you outside, there's
Speaker:all the people in the room and people talked about the cheering. Somebody, a prison guard,
Speaker:who was like, like across the way said, are you the person who that all that cheering wasn't
Speaker:from? I heard it in my courtroom, like, you know, one over or two over, right? So I didn't
Speaker:hear the initial, because they put you back into this like detention area and stuff like
Speaker:that. So clearly the whole, you know, a big chunk of the structure of the courthouse kind
Speaker:of, you know, became aware of all this. And so I think that they, you know, they treated
Speaker:me better. the guards who often can treat you very unkindly. They treated me better in response
Speaker:to that in part. So yeah, so the solidarity was, I think had a clear judicial benefit.
Speaker:And obviously then it's the bigger picture as well in that this is about, it's about sending
Speaker:the message to the authorities that if you pursue this type of thing elsewhere, in other instances,
Speaker:we're gonna try to make a big kerfuffle about it and make your life difficult in trying to
Speaker:do that. So all the campaigning and stuff is not just narrowly about this case, but about
Speaker:possible other cases, and cases that have already happened for that matter, and trying to push
Speaker:back against some of this you know, legal and policing abuse. We saw your partner and your
Speaker:father speak to the media. This wasn't the first time for your father. He explained like he
Speaker:was a journalist as well when he introduced himself there. But that's a lot of pressure
Speaker:that goes on them quite quickly, maybe unexpectedly. Did they feel the support as well? Yeah, I
Speaker:think they did. The issue with my partner and my youngest, my almost three-year-old, too,
Speaker:they actually were flying back from Uganda on Friday morning. So I hadn't actually been there
Speaker:for two months. So I hadn't seen my daughter in two months. My son came back five weeks
Speaker:ago because he had school and came back and stuff. So it was an added dimension of, I mean,
Speaker:there was a personal element to me to see them immediately after a long period. And also there
Speaker:was this sort of added burden on, I mean, two year old doesn't really process that, but of
Speaker:course Bianca, the burden on her. And so yeah, so there was this added burden. My dad was
Speaker:kind of like involved from right away and he's retired and there's a greater flexibility of
Speaker:time. And he was involved in the coordination with my lawyer and Alex Turrell and others
Speaker:who were organizing pushback. But yeah, it was a burden on them. You know, there's no doubt
Speaker:about that. It's, you know, it's stressful too for, I wasn't traumatized by being in jail
Speaker:in any way. I, there were moments that were not pleasant, obviously lots of boredom, but
Speaker:I, honestly, I would say I had as many fun moments as I did. like bad moments, right? So I, but
Speaker:I did think to myself, obviously repeatedly, one of the kind of bad moments is like, how
Speaker:are others processing me being in here, right? Like that's hard on Bianca to be like, doesn't
Speaker:really know, you don't know the condition. I wasn't able to talk to her, I wasn't able to
Speaker:talk to my lawyer the whole time. It's crazy. I'm not friend, total violation of rights.
Speaker:I think that people who know me, know, knew that it wasn't, it was unlikely to be too hard.
Speaker:And we saw the video of you going in. You seemed pretty stoic and resolved. Like, did you not
Speaker:have a moment though, where you just like, did you lose it for a minute? Like big, let out
Speaker:massive F bombs? Did you think it was a prank at any point? Well, on the Friday when I was
Speaker:told I was going back until Monday, which was now the second video hearing I'd had. So again,
Speaker:the cops could have just given conditions right away, could have been 15 minutes out the door.
Speaker:Then I have a video hearing on the Thursday, about four or five hours later. They, the Crown
Speaker:says, no, we object to his liberation. So they could have, they could have said, okay, yeah,
Speaker:you can go there. Then I have another video hearing on the Friday. At this point, I think
Speaker:it's gonna be my bail hearing, right? Though they wouldn't let me talk to my lawyer, so
Speaker:I wasn't prepared to defend. So at that point after that, and now they're just gonna push
Speaker:it off to Monday and nothing's actually happened. So at that point I did, I was like, you know,
Speaker:oh God. it's going to be 72 hours more and who knows if they're just going to try to figure
Speaker:something off to push it off. And in fact, we now sort of know that it almost did get pushed
Speaker:off another day because of either bureaucratic error or whatever. So there was a moment there
Speaker:where I was wondering, is this worth it? And also, I should also point out that I didn't
Speaker:know I was going to win on the condition. So it's like, I was willing to like... And I asked
Speaker:my lawyer this, I was like, you know, if you're telling me I have to be in a for a week to
Speaker:win on the condition, then I'm fine with the week. But if you're telling me I'm going, I'm
Speaker:staying here for another three days. For nothing. Yeah, for 10% chance on the condition, then
Speaker:I have to think that through about, you know, in terms of, right? So, so there are questions
Speaker:like that, where I got kind of, you know, like sort of down. And yeah, so I had some moments
Speaker:after the video hearing on the Friday where I was just like, questioning my decisions and
Speaker:questioning, and I also thought to myself, was there sort of like a trap that I kind of fell
Speaker:into that these pro-Israel types sort of were trying to get me to act in certain ways in
Speaker:response to this kind of legal thing? You ask yourself these questions of, was it the right,
Speaker:because I should tell you right away. I was told not to go public. My lawyer... Had he
Speaker:not known you very long or what? When I wrote the article in response to the initial charge
Speaker:of medallion, he was basically like, don't do it, don't go public. And my inclination was
Speaker:like, this is a race, I'm up for the fight, I think I'm right in the narrow, okay, on the
Speaker:legal condition question. But that's a small part of the right question. And I think on
Speaker:the broad question of Israel's genocide, You know, I think that we are so clearly right
Speaker:that it's, you know, like the fight is necessary and essential. But so, yeah, so you know, you
Speaker:doubt yourself a little bit that was, you know, difficult. And also, you know, the Friday morning,
Speaker:I was like disappointed, didn't get to see them coming back. They were coming back early in
Speaker:the morning from Uganda and like disappointed that. And Bianca's good friend died three months
Speaker:ago really terrible situation and there was a memorial on Saturday. So it was a bit difficult
Speaker:to not go to that. And yeah, so there were some things like that. But anyways, it was for the
Speaker:most part, it was not, you know, it wasn't traumatic for me. I mean, it still enrages us. It's so
Speaker:glad to hear that it didn't. But it was enraging for folks who had seen arrest after arrest.
Speaker:It wasn't surprising to see You know, hear people getting hauled away, but this just hit a little
Speaker:bit differently. And I don't think we often like single out cases of police suppression
Speaker:like the way that we did. But coming at a journalist just seemed like a ratchet up. We're very much
Speaker:grateful. Very much grateful that it ended up pretty good for you. But Can you tell us a
Speaker:little bit more about being denied your lawyer? Because one of the pieces of advice that we
Speaker:give folks on the show, you know, we've had movement lawyers on as well, on top of shut
Speaker:the fuck up being the number one piece of advice that... But silence is like deadly to activists
Speaker:and Eve being a journalist activist is... And I'm speaking to the audience here a little
Speaker:bit, like you could hear how he needed to keep that pencil and had to write. You know, like
Speaker:these conditions wouldn't just be, oh, tying my hands on talking about my case. Asking activists
Speaker:to stop pursuing Zionists and trying to end the genocide, that's just not, it's not an
Speaker:option, right? It's not an option. We've talked to people who've been arrested and, you know,
Speaker:they've not gone through what Eva's gone through, I think, in terms of like five days waiting
Speaker:for bail, but just. being in these predicaments and it being very stressful, but also trying
Speaker:to remember what Palestinian prisoners go through as a means to like, if they can do that, I
Speaker:can do this. Right? If there's thousands of them detained without charge in Israeli Zionist
Speaker:prisons, we just saw 600 hostages released just the other day. So I think that helps you put
Speaker:it into perspective, I kind of deterred from my question there. You weren't given a lawyer
Speaker:even, and correct me if I'm wrong, even though a judge at some point admonished that process
Speaker:and said you were due a lawyer and to remedy that, what was happening there? Because yeah,
Speaker:like the other piece of advice we give people is ask for a lawyer right away. Don't say anything
Speaker:to the police. Make it clear you want legal representation and don't sign those bail conditions
Speaker:until you hear from someone. That wasn't easy for you. No, it wasn't easy. First of all,
Speaker:there's no doubt. I thought about Palestinian prisoners a lot. The situation of difficulty
Speaker:is, I mean, it's just in the dungeons, the lack of any rights for Palestinian prisoners is
Speaker:like the scope at which this is so much. And the whole concept of steadfastness, I tried
Speaker:to, in the moments when I did, you know, find difficulty, I basically kind of admonish myself
Speaker:for being like, come on, are you kidding me? Like, people who have been 20 years in these
Speaker:Israeli dungeons and there's this like, which which, you know, is I think, you know, for
Speaker:me, at least that was a very good way to sort of bring myself back to reality and in a, you
Speaker:know, and sort of context of difficulty. And I think that That is important at a big picture
Speaker:level of, I've always kind of argued it in a, you know, I've said this around like Haiti
Speaker:stuff and like so much of Haitian affairs, the difficulty of Haitians can be resolved in Ottawa
Speaker:or Montreal or New York or Washington DC by campaigning. And it's like, the amount of work
Speaker:that we need to do and the amount of... I guess in the call of pain that we would need to,
Speaker:um, suffer, uh, to lessen that pain and suffering in Haiti. And then it holds slightly different
Speaker:dynamics, but holds to a large extent with, uh, Palestinians, the amount of pain we would
Speaker:have suffered to change the political dynamics, to lessen the pain there is not that much,
Speaker:right? Like that pain is so much less. And so, and so, you know, obviously should be, uh,
Speaker:everyone's in different personal situations and whatever, but it should be, we should push
Speaker:that to the extent we can. Now with regards to the guards, or the guards and the phone
Speaker:and the lawyer, it was pretty stunning. Nothing, no phone, no talking to my lawyer the whole
Speaker:time. What do you mean the whole time? Like until you were brought to the court? Until
Speaker:the court, yeah. Until, so- How did you even know you secured, cause you secured a lawyer
Speaker:before you went in? Yes, yeah. Okay. So- lawyer was all he didn't he had something that on
Speaker:the Thursday morning so he couldn't accompany us down to the detention center, but he was
Speaker:you know aware that was all happening it was and after the video court on the Thursday Something
Speaker:around three around three o'clock. They asked for I asked the police officer lawyer To talk
Speaker:to lawyer and they said you'll be able to talk to lawyer when you get to the prison and didn't
Speaker:get to the prison until about 9 p.m. and I asked nothing, no. And then on the Friday morning,
Speaker:they took me down to a video hearing at the prison and my lawyer had to stop, even though
Speaker:there was 20, 30 people in the room, the room was like full, they had to stop the discussion
Speaker:because I hadn't had a chance to talk to my lawyer and to then go off into a different
Speaker:room to talk to my lawyer. But that also, that... it impacted the whole kind of how the process
Speaker:played out. It disadvantaged me effectively. Beyond the fact that if you discuss and you
Speaker:can plan in advance and think about and all that stuff, but even in the narrow of actually
Speaker:how the process was playing itself out, it disadvantaged me. And then, so then my lawyer on the Friday
Speaker:said, we haven't got to talk to him, we need to prepare a defense and ask the judge to mandate
Speaker:the prison to enable us to... discuss over the weekend and they just ignored it. What? But
Speaker:I don't know if it was even sent to the prison, but in this case, again, I don't think this
Speaker:was actually, it wasn't politically targeted. It wasn't targeted at me in that sense. It
Speaker:was politically targeted in a broad sense in that they just, they do that with everyone.
Speaker:All the prisoners were like, they don't, it's just the bare minimum. Like in our, apparently
Speaker:in our cell, there were phones. They were like private, they were, you know, whatever, bell
Speaker:phones, the private phones, I guess, and they had been broken. Apparently they'd been broken
Speaker:recently, I don't know, there are two of them. So they're, what were being told to me, I don't
Speaker:know if it's true or not, that, you know, a few weeks ago, if someone in my situation would
Speaker:have had access to these phones, and I guess at some point been able to call their lawyer.
Speaker:I don't know if that's true or not, I don't know if they were trying to fix the phones
Speaker:or not, or. On the Monday, once the error of me being in court got onto the radar, they
Speaker:brought a phone for me to try my lawyer. I wasn't able to get through to him. So obviously they
Speaker:have the technology to offer phone calls to... Yeah, we have a thing called cell phones. They
Speaker:exist. They can move from room to room. They had those old school... We put them on the
Speaker:thing, but you can move a hundred feet away or whatever from the phone. Oh, the cordless.
Speaker:A cordless, yeah. So I hadn't seen one of those in a while. So they obviously could if they
Speaker:cared, but that was just abundantly clear in all of the treatment is that the guards are,
Speaker:like there is a clear dehumanization. I think the guards themselves get dehumanized in the
Speaker:process, but it's mostly of course against the prisoners. That it's just like, they're trying
Speaker:to do the bare minimum. of stuff. So they do will they bring the food, they'll but they
Speaker:but it's like, they don't want to fulfill any request like they you know, there's a whole
Speaker:form, you know, fill out a form about you talking a lawyer. I did that on the Sunday when I was
Speaker:finally told about it. I've been asking verbally for lawyer from right when I got there. And
Speaker:then they finally told me on the Sunday at noon that you got to fill out a form and I'm like,
Speaker:what why are you telling us now? So I fill the form out right away. put it in and then at
Speaker:five o'clock when they lock down, because then they're locking down at five, apparently because
Speaker:there wasn't enough guards, that's what they're saying, I don't know why, but that's what they're
Speaker:saying. At five o'clock, I'm like, but I haven't talked to my lawyer yet. And the guy's like,
Speaker:the guy that guard just tells me, I haven't even, he doesn't even move my form along, the
Speaker:form just sitting on the desk. They basically just like laugh at me about talking to my lawyer.
Speaker:And that's the kind of like attitude across the board, is they don't want to. fulfill any
Speaker:requests. They don't want to, like, it's just the minimum. Some of it, to be fair to the
Speaker:guards, some of it is like there is a kind of like understandable element. There's a whole
Speaker:bunch of elements. First of all, if you humanize the person you need to sort of dehumanize,
Speaker:because the structure of course is structured that way, it's awkward for the individual if
Speaker:you want to like, you know, treat them like they're, you know... a human being, an equal
Speaker:or whatever, but then everything in the structure is telling you can't do that, that's of course
Speaker:going to make it harder on yourself to just do your job because then you feel bad about
Speaker:things and stuff like that. Some of it also on the other side, you know, the one of the
Speaker:guys, the guys who was in there with me, this guy, he shit himself repeatedly. Older guy,
Speaker:like about 70, he shit himself. just like all over his bed in his area. And then later on,
Speaker:he has, he was wearing a diaper when I first saw him. And then later on, he has his pants
Speaker:on with his diaper on top of his pants. So he didn't understand that you have to have the
Speaker:diaper on. This guy's in jail. Like I have no idea what they accused him of. But like, you
Speaker:know the guy should like. Like he doesn't understand, he can't physically control his body and he
Speaker:clearly doesn't understand. And this guy would go to the guards, kind of like all, like every
Speaker:15 minutes to ask something. So we would just have eaten, like an hour earlier, and he'd
Speaker:be going to the guards asking about food. And so you can even kind of understand from a guard's
Speaker:perspective that it's like, you don't know what's kind of like a reasonable request and what's
Speaker:just kind of like... Because there is, like there's tons of mental illness. There's tons
Speaker:of, you know, as I said a few places, like they ask you about suicide, and detention center
Speaker:asks you about suicide. And then right away when you get to prison, they ask you about
Speaker:suicide. And it's because they're bringing people to a large extent who have all kinds of like,
Speaker:in distress, mental illness, and they're putting them in a situation that's even more stressful
Speaker:and even more, right? So they're just exacerbating that. And I mean, they're asking about the
Speaker:suicide in part. to kind of cover their own ass. That's kind of like, I think from the,
Speaker:right? We tried, we tried to ensure that didn't happen or whatever kind of thing, but it is
Speaker:also real. I think it does, I'm sure there is a massive increase in attempts or actual suicides.
Speaker:So, you kind of look at all these. from these different directions and it yeah it's a totally
Speaker:dehumanizing I don't think that not being able to talk to my lawyer was about me I think it
Speaker:was about that all of us none of us were able to get to get through and uh and uh you know
Speaker:it's obviously outrageous that the that the prison does that or you know has that happened
Speaker:and then the guards themselves at the kind of lower level and that it's like it's wrong that
Speaker:they don't they don't realize that this is wrong and that they so I don't know maybe push a
Speaker:bit more, but they're kind of caught in this like awkward kind of position. So it's definitely
Speaker:not a You know, I don't think it I don't think there's like an easy solution like some of
Speaker:the people I talked to in You know, but number of people were there for beating or abusing
Speaker:their partners, right and Talking to this one guy who was just totally Like I would say on
Speaker:the surface it seemed just out of proportion kind of distressed with his situations. He
Speaker:was this 33-year-old guy, kind of pretty good shape. He looked like he had some physical,
Speaker:he had to hurt his hand. And I think he'd been in a fight with his partner. Don't know all
Speaker:the details and what exactly happened. But his level of distress, and then breaking down what
Speaker:his distress was over, was quite fascinating in terms of how you would deal with it. Because
Speaker:clearly he needed counseling. Clearly he needed counseling. But part of his issue was that
Speaker:his apartment, good price apartment by Metro that he got and that his partner got in the
Speaker:dispute. I obviously don't know all the details of the dispute. So clearly this guy needs counseling.
Speaker:I think he needs to be kept away from his partner. So those conditions that were there that he
Speaker:had breached, I think that makes sense. But part of the issue was housing. He was stressed,
Speaker:this guy, he'd been homeless when he was in his youth. And so he'd gotten a good deal of
Speaker:place. and knowing that it was unlikely he would be able to get another, you know, similar type
Speaker:situation. So like, clearly, like social housing, even though ostensibly social housing had nothing
Speaker:to do with this issue, social housing was part of the issue, right? Because that's a big part
Speaker:of what his stress was about, presumably also part of his, like, you know, ongoing conflict
Speaker:with his former partner. So, you know, when you look at it, how to intervene to not arrive
Speaker:at a situation where people are being put in that place, there's like a bunch of different
Speaker:interventions that are actually necessary. It's not a simple, you know, there's no sort of
Speaker:simple solution. But the first phase, of course, is to desire to not have people incarcerated.
Speaker:And to some extent, our society has that, but not enough. And then go about, you know, trying
Speaker:to figure that out. Yeah, like they're not directly related. But we know that, you know, so-called
Speaker:crime is directly correlated to levels of poverty and distress, social distress. So it is all
Speaker:interconnected and just being able to go inside and see this firsthand allows you to speak
Speaker:about it on a different level now. These charges have brought a different level of notoriety.
Speaker:I mean, it's not like- You were an unknown before this, many books written, I mean endless videos
Speaker:now in the last year and a half of you attempting to hold not just liberals but all elected officials
Speaker:that aren't doing enough accountable. I love that you posted a video almost the next day
Speaker:at a Jekmeet Singh conference, holding it to him, asking him about the fighter jet contract
Speaker:and Then I load up yesterday or just this morning, I see a Lantzman in front of your lens and
Speaker:I can't believe you just didn't even take a week off or anything. I mean, I, you know,
Speaker:I do those things because I, you know, I believe in doing them. I think they have, they're a
Speaker:useful form of political intervention. But I also have to say really clearly, I had an added
Speaker:motivation. I left a whole bunch of other things aside that I do really want to get to. energy
Speaker:to do that because I also wanted to send a message that like if you thought this was going to
Speaker:like stop me or this was going to intimidate me or all that kind of stuff that so there
Speaker:was this added motivation I want to do these to not just show not to show the authorities
Speaker:but actually to show all the people who you know kind of paid attention the issue and you
Speaker:know rallied in support that like yeah that you know and I because I think there is a there's
Speaker:a there's an act of defiance in there that I wanted to communicate um you know more broadly.
Speaker:I felt it. I felt it. Like the relief. Like I still think you deserved a few days off,
Speaker:by the way, but I understand completely what you said there. And cause I felt that just
Speaker:being like you hadn't missed a step. You had missed five days, but you hadn't like there
Speaker:was that defiance was still heard in your voice and you were still, you know, pressing folks.
Speaker:in an unapologetic way, right? Like you're known as an agitator and we know that that's in part
Speaker:why you were targeted, right? Many journalists have, well maybe not many, have, you know,
Speaker:used the fascist word label. A lot of people have identified pro-genocide supporters, Zionists.
Speaker:Most of them are open about their support for it, you know, they may not use the genocide
Speaker:word but it's not like a stretch. with all of the international rulings that have called
Speaker:it a genocide, I want to read Penn's statement out loud, or at least a couple sentences from
Speaker:their statement, because when we go back to the beginning of the conversation and we're
Speaker:talking about the kinds of charges Eve was facing and just how ridiculous they are, I think Penn
Speaker:just kind of summed it up pretty good here. They say they take the position that it's not
Speaker:a crime to take a pro-Palestinian stance in public. It is not a crime to object to those
Speaker:who support Israel's actions or to describe them as fascist. It's not a crime to criticize
Speaker:or condemn the state of Israel. It's not a crime to write that Israel's actions in Gaza are
Speaker:genocide. To object in print to others who support Israel's actions is not a threat to any individual
Speaker:or to the police. It is not harassment to object to actions taken by the Montreal police or
Speaker:to write about them. It's not a crime to ask other citizens of Canada to object to actions
Speaker:taken by the Montreal police. Every citizen of Canada is entitled to write their opinions
Speaker:and to speak out in public. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right whether one agrees with
Speaker:the content of such statements, or whether one disagrees with the content. So,
Speaker:We all know that that's true and when you read it so plain and clear like that, there's very
Speaker:few people I think across Canada even who do not like what you do, okay? Because you know,
Speaker:you've made enemies by design, but surely that no one would agree that what you did was worth
Speaker:any charges. And if the goal was to silence you but they achieve the opposite Do you think
Speaker:they're regretting their actions at this point? I would think so, but we know one part that's
Speaker:public, one part that's not. They have pursued sort of similar things now against Senator
Speaker:Wu and someone else that I can't name the specifics of at this point, meaning that Kurtz and Obermann
Speaker:have now going after the Canadian senator for having posted in solidarity. with my imprisonment.
Speaker:So they seem to believe they're going on the offensive further. So they don't seem to think
Speaker:that this was an error. I think it very clearly. It's a template for them. Yeah. And so to me,
Speaker:there's all kinds of elements in terms of pursuing. I think that the more that we can make Dalia
Speaker:Kurtz the face of pro-Israel, campaigning in Canada, I think the better from the standpoint
Speaker:of Palestine world, because I think it's not a, her positions are not ones that the vast
Speaker:majority of people are going to be sympathetic to. I also think that the whole Neil Obermann,
Speaker:the fact that he's a conservative candidate, and I was, Samira in the interview I did with
Speaker:her, she actually showed a clip of Poliev. calling Neil Obermann Doberman, like a dog, a vicious
Speaker:dog, and boasting that he needed to be in the House of Commons because of all the injunctions
Speaker:that he's taken out against Palestine. He's the one who took the injunction on the McGill
Speaker:encampment and others. And so the idea that the leader of the Conservative Party is saying
Speaker:that we need this like aggressive cancel culture. anti-free speech activist lawyer to be an MP.
Speaker:Now, yesterday when we went to the Lansman, myself and Alex Turow, the leader of the Green
Speaker:Party of Quebec, Alex asked one of the people at the table, this was a Neil Obermann event,
Speaker:and he asked one of the people with a Neil Obermann shirt on, basically that variation of that
Speaker:question, of what do you think people who... who criticized Israel's being thrown in jail,
Speaker:and the woman was like, of course not. This was somebody who was almost certainly very
Speaker:staunchly pro-Israel and a Neil Obermann supporter, and she just reacted, of course not. And yet,
Speaker:Neil Obermann has been kind of like working that. So yes, I think that there is this broad,
Speaker:when you get into the free speech kind of realm, you get a lot of people who don't necessarily
Speaker:support my, you know, stuff on Palestine, and maybe not maybe even be support Israel for
Speaker:that matter. But they get they you know they do believe in the principle of freedom of expression.
Speaker:And I think there are some fissures within you know like the conservative movement and polia
Speaker:like they do they do frame themselves as a sort of like they're you know they do this whole
Speaker:rhetoric of like the anti woke pro free speech and the you know the whole cancel culture kind
Speaker:of language and stuff like that. so that he's censoring the news on Canadian social media
Speaker:feeds. So there's some divisions there that I think are worth, certainly the Palestine
Speaker:solidarity world kind of like trying to exploit and trying to bring out and stuff like that.
Speaker:Obviously like, you know, the more that the pro-Israel movement is viewed as like authoritarian,
Speaker:there's there's a positive in that. Now, of course, it's been a very, like this isn't new,
Speaker:this isn't just in the last 16 months. I've seen this for 25 years now. Like that's my
Speaker:personal coming to political consciousness is not coming on Palestine. Like it comes from
Speaker:like anti-corporate globalization and sort of just sort of general kind of like left stuff
Speaker:and then being thrust into the Palestine kind of movement at Concordia, you know, 25 years
Speaker:ago. and seeing the authoritarian nature of the Zionist movement. That's all picked up
Speaker:massively over the past 16 months. It's not something new, but it's gotten a lot worse.
Speaker:So it's one thing to say that the more they're viewed as authoritarian, that may lead to greater
Speaker:sympathy for Palestine. But that's not exactly correct because it's been going on for quite
Speaker:a while. and how that exactly plays out. But I think that in terms of some of this stuff,
Speaker:the freedom of expression, we do, there is important to build broader kind of freedom of expression,
Speaker:Palestine, kind of consciousness campaigning. The pen letter, I think, does sort of contribute
Speaker:to that. And obviously all the other forms of support for my situation obviously also contribute
Speaker:to that. I wonder, will you change anything about the way you operate? Well, I obviously
Speaker:am not going to have any direct communication to Dahlia Kurtz and also the Montreal police
Speaker:inspector that I... Will you chirp at other people? Will it stop you from tagging folks
Speaker:when you've got or calling people fascists in that way? Oh no, not at all. No, no, not at
Speaker:all. Yeah, not at all. No, just, just the narrow in the... I have to have... There's some little
Speaker:bits on X that I haven't... There were some people who were posting. They had posted...
Speaker:Dahlia Kurtz's, they've tagged her. And then I wasn't really sure if I, if I didn't respond
Speaker:to them, like how, yeah, I don't know how exactly that would play out. Right. So I, I'm, I'm
Speaker:initially, if you reply, her tag will be there. You'd have to like take it off. Yeah. Like
Speaker:who's interpreting this. Yes. So I have some questions that I'm going to tread carefully.
Speaker:I don't like Dahlia Kurtz in that sense. It's like, I don't follow her on, on XID. totally
Speaker:inconsequential. I mean, in principle, I feel I should have the right to respond to it, of
Speaker:course, but fairly inconsequential in the kind of bigger thing. So I'm going to try to avoid
Speaker:that. But aside from that, my plan is, and like I said, my initial concern was that condition
Speaker:of keeping the peace because that also has this very broad implication or potential implication.
Speaker:But no, I don't plan to... to change, and I should say, I'm really clear, it further angers
Speaker:me or bitters me towards Zionist campaigning and the Zionist structure of, first of all,
Speaker:obviously supporting all of Israel's crimes, but also of using and abusing and the policing
Speaker:judicial system to, again, serve you know, killing more babies in Gaza. Yeah, and in support of
Speaker:a foreign state's policy. It is shocking to see the police deployed in such an extent to
Speaker:such a specific purpose. And so I don't think, and I agree with you, that not everything that
Speaker:happened to you was politically motivated. But when it's happening, it sure feels that way,
Speaker:right? Look what they're doing to him. And you know, it's just like it just added fuel to
Speaker:everybody's fire though. So in the same way you talk about, you know, exposing the authoritarianism,
Speaker:you know, taking that mask off, right? Whether it's the police, the crown, law firms, conservative
Speaker:candidates and all of that. It's, they only do it because we've gotten to a certain point
Speaker:where they're forced to use these ridiculous tactics that aren't even working. They're not
Speaker:working. Yes, it's, they took you away from your family for five days. It could cost you
Speaker:some resources. distress for sure, but they made you louder. They increased your audience.
Speaker:They had people reaffirming support for you, even though they had to couch it in like, I
Speaker:may not agree with everything Eve does, right? But I stand with him right now. So people who
Speaker:thought maybe they would never have, would stand alongside of you did. So, and this happens
Speaker:with other arrestees as well, you know, who... fight or find community in the process, you
Speaker:know, have jail support, have legal support and can take this stand. They end up stronger,
Speaker:more connected, more informative. They've you know, I don't know if you were before, but
Speaker:you know, now you're talking abolition a little bit. You said you didn't remember what the
Speaker:original question was, but it was just that whether you thought they regretted what they
Speaker:did. And so yeah, like they might attempt this again and again, but every time they do and
Speaker:every time they tighten that fist. It just seems to make us stronger and more determined as
Speaker:individuals and as a movement because you know you're mad about what happened to you. Many
Speaker:other people are mad about what happened to you. Many of us who do that kind of snarkiness
Speaker:on the internet or can be affront to some people and their identities and whatnot. You know
Speaker:it had them thinking about What does this mean for me? Like, are we all just targets? But
Speaker:I don't think it's going to slow anybody down in the same way it hasn't really slowed any
Speaker:of the movement down, despite all of these arrests and threats and, you know, the narratives that
Speaker:flowed out there. We're all supporters of terrorism. None of it. None of this garbage has really...
Speaker:It's done the complete opposite. So... I guess that's a message to folks who feel distress
Speaker:seeing this, like feel like we're deep in fascism and this police state is just ever widening.
Speaker:It is a sign that they are afraid and they are having to deploy tactics they normally would
Speaker:have reserved, you know, for emergencies. So
Speaker:It's a response to the upsurge. There's never been, in the history of Canadian foreign policy,
Speaker:there's never been an instance of more activism over a Canada's complicity in international
Speaker:crime than there has been over the past 16 months. So part of the attacks against Palestine solidarity
Speaker:is because there's been so much of it. So that's a positive. On the note of... You know, how
Speaker:I am, there's a discomfort in some of the, how you respond to some of this suppression and
Speaker:state authority and stuff like that. Because I do think obviously it's healthy. We need
Speaker:to know, for instance, the history, you know, they, they were people killed against conscription
Speaker:during World War I. They killed Ginger Goodwin out Vancouver Island, World War I. There was
Speaker:tons and tons of people thrown in jail. World War II also, the mayor of Montreal, the head
Speaker:of the Siemens Union thrown in jail, Korean War. There was the head of the Canadian Peace
Speaker:Congress. His house was firebombed and Lester Pearson was calling on people to destroy the
Speaker:Peace Congress and then Foreign Minister Lester Pearson. And so there is long history of repression
Speaker:against international focus kind of. activism or and other for that matter, of course, activists
Speaker:as well, anti-war. And so we should know that history and we should obviously know about
Speaker:all these outrageous cases across the country of different activists that have been in their
Speaker:houses raided over the past year or year and a half. All that's really important, but there's
Speaker:also a line between that and I would say unhealthy paranoia
Speaker:and we are all weak and therefore, you know, what leads to inactivity, right? And it can
Speaker:lead to inactivity. I've seen many, many experiences over many years about people who, who they,
Speaker:their, their conception of the extent of the state surveillance slash repression, I think
Speaker:goes beyond the I don't know the reality and gets into like and then it becomes I think
Speaker:in some ways it can become a justification for not acting that there's an element sometimes
Speaker:but it but it just effectively takes on a well I'm not gonna act cuz I'm cuz I'm too scared
Speaker:or because it's too overwhelming and stuff like that or futile right if you believe the state
Speaker:is all that powerful what are you to Yeah. And so that's one of the things that I'm also happy
Speaker:in all this, is to get a win. And ultimately, it's a really minimal win, right? It's just
Speaker:like no condition about speaking. In some sense, it's like a ridiculously small win. But to
Speaker:get that win, I hope breaks down some of that, the futile, some of that, and gives a little
Speaker:bit of boost to... to the movement, to Palestine, to all how it all, what exactly that movement
Speaker:is, but mostly Palestine. But yeah. It is. Like when you think about it in the grand scheme
Speaker:of things, just securing your basic rights, right? Like making sure your bail conditions
Speaker:weren't unconstitutional shouldn't be a victory. But it really felt like one, right? It really
Speaker:did. Especially to folks who have been watching your work so closely and understand. its relation
Speaker:to the Canadian state. So it was just like, if they could silence you on this little thing,
Speaker:it would have set a horrible precedent, you know, and it felt a lot bigger, you know, even
Speaker:my partner here who doesn't follow a whole lot. When I said, Eve is out, he knew that was a
Speaker:very good thing and he it brought him a level of relief. Like it was I know you didn't feel
Speaker:that and this isn't to center like how all we felt, but it was, it was a mix of emotions
Speaker:I think for a lot of folks that just, especially people who hadn't been exposed to the pervasiveness.
Speaker:I know you want to like try to not minimize it, but cautious around how we talk about that
Speaker:but I think people are shocked at the behavior of police. You know, it's something you read
Speaker:about, we talk about what a police state looks like or fascism and but to see it happen like
Speaker:that and that's why I asked you at one point did you not think it was a prank at some point
Speaker:that like your tweets to Dahlia were leading to an arrest? Like a real one not just like
Speaker:I'm calling you scare you like a cease and desist letter it was like no they were ready to cuff
Speaker:you because you called someone a fascist on the internet it just seems surreal honestly.
Speaker:But it was very real. I very much appreciate you holding fast. I've said that a few times.
Speaker:I said it on Twitter because like I was holding my breath a little bit because it meant a lot
Speaker:for you not to give up on those conditions But at the same time you don't want to put pressures
Speaker:on an individual It's when I read you had a two-year-old, you know having littles myself.
Speaker:I go I that's tough you know, you do just want to be in and out in there in 15 minutes not
Speaker:because you have shit to do but because there's all of the awful things you describe while
Speaker:you were in there, you know, amongst other things. So I know it wasn't easy, but we very much
Speaker:appreciate you fighting those conditions so that we could hear all about your case, but
Speaker:also for selfish reasons, like for our for our movement and for us as individuals to kind
Speaker:of strengthen our resolve and our understanding of what's on the line here. So thank you for
Speaker:doing that and for spending your precious time in our studio today. You must have a million
Speaker:things to write about and to talk about, so yeah, our audience very much appreciates it,
Speaker:Eve. Thank you. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. If you like what
Speaker:you heard, be sure to share the episode on your own social media feeds. You can also take a
Speaker:quick minute and give us a great review on whatever platform you're using to listen. Before we
Speaker:go though, Here is that folk song Eve referenced in his thank you letter. It's David Rovix with
Speaker:What's Going On Here, Montreal. ["What's Going On Here, Montreal"]
Speaker:Who is Dahlia Kurtz? It seems she mainly likes to post lies about what's happening in Gaza,
Speaker:the Holocaust that she denies. Eve Engler is a journalist, and who knows why it is. He's
Speaker:been arrested for pointing out his fetus, full of stuff like this. What's going on here, Montreal?
Speaker:It's anybody's guess. Seems the cops are taking orders from Jerusalem, And they've come to
Speaker:imprison the press.
Speaker:Is Dahlia Kurtzen, why is she coming up in my feed? When I go to her page on X, I too am
Speaker:outraged indeed. And that's what happened to Eve, and so he posted a reply. And now he's
Speaker:been arrested. And... We'd like to know why. What's going on here, Montreal? It's anybody's
Speaker:guess. Seems the cops are taking orders from Jerusalem, and they've come to imprison the
Speaker:press. Who is Dahlia Kurtz? And who decided that we? Should see the horrid stuff she posts
Speaker:on the top of my feed And when did freedom of speech get fed to the cats? And how many of
Speaker:you out there didn't think you lived in a country like that? What's going on here, Montreal?
Speaker:It's anybody's guess. Seems the cops are taking orders from Jerusalem, and they've come to
Speaker:imprison the press. What's going on here, Montreal? It's anybody's guess. Seems the cops are taking
Speaker:orders from Jerusalem, and they've come to imprison the press.
Speaker:Until next time, keep disrupting.
