Police in Canada arrested prominent activist, author over pro-Palestinian stance

This screenshot from YouTube shows Yves Engler, a Canadian activist and author.

Police in Canada have arrested a Canadian activist and author for criticizing Israel and its genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Yves Engler, a vocal critic of Israel and the Canadian military complex, was arrested on Thursday after Dahlia Kurtz, a Zionist influencer, accused him of harassment.

“Tomorrow the Montreal police will arrest me for posting to social media against Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” Engler said in an article on Wednesday after Montreal Police reached out to him about their plans to arrest him because of Kurtz’s complaint.

Pointing out that he had “responded to Kurtz's racist, violent, anti-Palestinian posts on X”, Engler said he had not harassed the influencer, who “supports killing Palestinian children” and “openly calls for state violence against those challenging Canadian complicity in genocide.”

“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).”

The father of two was taken into custody on Thursday morning and appeared before a judge later in the day. He spent the night in jail, and a bail hearing has been set for Friday.

After he publicized his scheduled arrest, police pledged new charges of “harassing” police and “obstructing” their work against Engler, Alex Tyrrell, party leader of the Green Party of Quebec, who accompanied Engler to the police station on Thursday, said in a post on X.

That’s while, the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute organized an action campaign, and thousands of people had written to the Montreal police asking them to drop charges against Engler.

Speaking to the Middle East Eye, Tyrrell said “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.”

Engler, who has worked with the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions campaign targeting Israel, 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 added, while police had asked Engler not to speak about the case.

Activists have reportedly said that there has been an institutional culture of repression against the pro-Palestine movement in Canada.

In November 2023, protest organizer and Palestinian-Canadian activist Wesam Khaled was arrested and charged with “disturbing the peace” for using the chant: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."

University of Ottawa medical resident and doctor Yipeng Ge also faced criticism after posting pro-Palestinian content on social media and was suspended from his residency in December 2023.

He resigned from the Canadian Medical Association board of directors, citing "bullying, harassment, and intimidation".

Before turning himself in to Montreal police on Thursday, Engler spoke to media, slamming the use of police and legal system by advocates of Israel and its crimes “to target someone that opposes the Canadian government’s complicity in a genocide and rampage by Israel.”

A ceasefire deal was reached between Israel and Hamas last month after 15 months of the regime's genocidal war on the strip, which claimed the lives of at least 48,319 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 111,749 others.

The regime approved the ceasefire after falling short of realizing any of its wartime objectives, including freeing the captives, “eliminating” the Gazan resistance, and causing forced displacement of Gaza’s entire population to neighboring Egypt.