Prominent Canadian activist and author arrested for pro-Palestinian activism
A Canadian activist and author, who has been likened to Noam Chomsky, was arrested by police in Montreal, Canada, on Thursday for criticising Israel and accusations of harassment from a pro-Israeli influencer.
Yves Engler has been a voracious critic of Israel and the Canadian military complex for over two decades.
After Montreal Police reached out to him about their plans to arrest Engler because of a complaint lodged against him by Zionist influencer Dahlia Kurtz, he took to social media to highlight the issue. While he admitted he had responded to Kurtz's "racist, violent, anti-Palestinian posts" on X, he said he had not harassed her.
“I’ve never met Kurtz. Nor have I messaged or emailed her. Nor have I threatened her. I don’t even follow her on X (Twitter’s algorithm puts her posts in my feed).”
After Engler posted about his arrest and the allegations made against him, the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute organised an action campaign, and almost 3,200 people, by the time of publishing, had written to the Montreal police asking them to drop charges against Engler.
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This appeared to result in further disciplinary charges for Engler. He wrote in another post yesterday that the police reached out to him with further charges for “harassing [them] for writing about the charges levelled against me” and asking him not to speak about his case.
The father of two was taken into custody at 9:30am local time and appeared before a judge on Thursday afternoon. He will spend the night in jail, and a bail hearing has been set for Friday.
'Attack' on free expression
Alex Tyrrell, party leader of the Green Party of Quebec, who accompanied Engler to the police station on Thursday, spoke to the Middle East Eye about Engler’s arrest.
“I think it’s a shocking attack on free expression and democratic rights and criticism of Israel in Canada - a country that’s supposed to be a free, democratic society. We’re supposed to speak out about a genocide," Tyrrel told MEE.
Tyrell says that Engler is one of the most outspoken people in Canada on the Israel-Palestine issue, and Kurtz's accusations formed the basis of his arrest.
Tyrrell expressed concern that Engler was being taken away from his advocacy work and was being forced to use his personal and professional time to defend himself.
The party leader said he had known Engler for more than a decade and had gotten to know him through his criticisms of Israel and his work with the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions campaign targeting Israel. Both men had appeared on each other's podcasts, and Tyrrell said he would see Engler at protests.
Engler has written 12 books, mainly focusing on Canada's foreign policy with Haiti, Africa and Israel.
“Yves has a very tough personality and is used to confronting some of the most important people in the country. He was in good spirits and is defiant and intends to bring publicity to his case,” Tyrrell told MEE.
Neither Montreal Police nor the law firm representing Kurtz responded to MEE’s request for comment by the time of publication.
Repression in Canada
Activists have said that there has been an institutional culture of repression against the pro-Palestine movement in Canada.
Both politicians and the police have been instrumental in cracking down on the pro-Palestinian movement. For example, the Calgary Police Service arrested protest organiser and Palestinian-Canadian activist Wesam Khaled in November 2023, charging him with disturbing the peace for using the phrase, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."
Nobel Peace Prize nominee Jeff Halper has said that close ties between Canadian Police and Israel, as well as Israeli military research, have resulted in a crackdown on civil liberties in the country.
During a talk at Concordia University in Montreal a decade ago, the Israeli-American anthropologist said, “Israel is involved in your prison systems. It’s involved in training the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It’s involved in your airport security.”
Canadian healthcare professionals have also faced backlash for speaking out.
In December 2023, University of Ottawa medical resident and doctor Yipeng Ge faced criticism after posting pro-Palestinian content on social media and was suspended from his residency. He resigned from the Canadian Medical Association board of directors, citing "bullying, harassment, and intimidation".
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