Five more arrested over antisemitic signs at Toronto March protest, 30 hate charges laid since Oct. 7
Toronto police arrested five more suspects tied to antisemitic signage at a March 15 protest in the city's Jewish neighbourhood. Chief Demkiw says 30 hate propaganda charges have been laid since Oct. 7, 2023.
Five more suspects arrested over antisemitic signs at Toronto protest
Toronto police have arrested five additional suspects in connection with antisemitic signs displayed at a demonstration on March 15 in the Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue West area, the heart of the city's Jewish community, National Post Crime reports.
At a news conference on Monday, Toronto Chief of Police Myron Demkiw said police carried out search warrants early the previous morning before arresting the five individuals. Each has been charged with public incitement of hatred and willful promotion of hatred.
"On April 2 we announced the arrest of one individual and a charge of public incitement of hatred at the time," Demkiw said. "We also announced that a number of search warrants had been carried out at multiple locations, and that phones and laptops had been seized."
That individual, arrested two months ago, has now also been charged with willful promotion of hatred.
Placards depicting antisemitic caricatures
Photos of the March 15 protest, shared on X by the account Leviathan (@l3v1at4an) and subsequently circulated by B'nai Brith Canada, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, showed demonstrators carrying signs featuring antisemitic imagery.
The placards included a caricature of an emaciated Orthodox Jewish man exiting a cave, a drawing of a Jewish man in a kippah crying into a walkie-talkie covered in an American flag as missiles fell around him, and an image of rats crawling through a hole shaped like the Star of David.
Sharp rise in hate charges since October 7
Demkiw said Toronto police have laid 30 hate propaganda charges since October 7, 2023, including 11 willful promotion of hatred charges. In the more than ten years between 2010 and 2023, the force had laid only six hate propaganda charges in total, including four counts of willful promotion of hatred.
"We will continue to be relentless in following the evidence to hold those who commit criminal acts of hate accountable, no matter how long it takes," Demkiw said.
Protests have taken place regularly in the Bathurst and Sheppard area since shortly after the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Jewish organizations had called for action
Monday's announcement followed an open letter sent to Chief Demkiw by B'nai Brith Canada, CIJA, and the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto after the March 15 protest. The organizations called on Toronto police to investigate and lay charges, to declare assemblies unlawful when they promote or incite hate, and to make changes necessary to protect the city.
The protest had taken place just days after three Toronto synagogues were struck by gunfire within the span of a week. The letter addressed those attacks directly: "As synagogues are shattered by gunfire and extremists march through largely Jewish neighbourhoods, it's clear that the status quo is not only unacceptable — it's a growing threat to innocent life in our city."
"Hate has real impacts"
At Monday's news conference, Demkiw stressed that charges can follow an incident well after the fact.
"Today is an example of what we mean when we say that arrests and charges can come at any time after an incident," he said. "Hate has real impacts. Anti-Semitic behaviour like this creates fear, anxiety, and division in our communities."
He said the force's Counter Terrorism Security Unit investigates thoroughly, gathers evidence carefully, and pursues charges where there are reasonable grounds and legal authority to do so.
Source: National Post Crime