Important message for the Montreal Palestine solidarity movement and human rights defenders
On Wednesday August 10th 2022 during a rally to honor the most recent victims of Israeli apartheid, an individual approached organizers of the event including a known PAJU member. The individual who approach our PAJU member started the conversation with vague remarks and questions about the situation in Palestine. At the beginning our PAJU representative engaged in the discussion, as we always do with the aim to educate the public about the brutality of Israeli Apartheid.
Yet at one point, the individual then started to ask more pointed questions, particularly relating to the structure of organizing and communication between groups and about the preparations around the GRAND PRIX CYCLISTE DE MONTRÉAL that is going to take place in Montreal on the 11th of September, 2022. Immediately, the alarm bells went off in the mind of our PAJU member. The individual may have taken notice. Only then did he introduce himself as a Sureté du Québec (SQ) intelligence officer. Notably, before speaking to the PAJU member, the SQ agent had already approached a few other organizers of the event without ever disclosing his position.
These strategies are well known tactics of harassment and intimidation by Israeli Apartheid security forces and their accomplices. They are meant to dissuade human rights activists from engaging in public campaigns and to send a message that Big Brother is ALWAYS watching. But racial and political profiling violates peoples’ rights at their most fundamental roots. It is an insidious and particularly damaging type of discrimination that relates to notions of safety and security. People from many different communities experience racial profiling on a regular basis. However, it is often directed at First Nations, Métis, Inuit and other Indigenous peoples, Muslims, Arabs, West Asians and Black people, and is often influenced by the negative stereotypes that people in these communities face.
We in PAJU understand that hosting an Israeli Apartheid team carries huge security risks, but we believe that the way to insure public safety is not to harass and intimidate human rights defenders but rather for the City of Montreal and Quebec as a whole, to take a courageous and historical step to end its collaboration with regimes such as the Israeli apartheid regime. They already did it for Byelorussia and Russia. Why not do it for the Israeli apartheid regime?
Israel is Apartheid
According to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tslem and the former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, Israel is an Apartheid state. Apartheid is an international crime against humanity, and that means that anyone that is collaborating with that regime is complicit in those crimes.
Citizens of conscious have a duty to denounce the support their city is giving to the Israeli Apartheid regime. They also have a constitutional right to protest, express political opinions and speak out against injustices. They also have the right to hold accountable people in power who willfully endorse intimidation and repressive tactics against human rights defenders.
PAJU calls on all Palestine solidarity activists to remain vigilant and to report incidents of harassment and intimidation by any and all ‘’security’’ (repressive) forces.
We also call on Palestine activists and human rights defenders to not be intimidated by the bullies. As the popular folk song goes, “we shall not be moved”. We will continue to organize against the representatives of Israeli apartheid coming to cycle in Montreal on September 11th.
We must never fail to remember, protest and denounce injustices. We look forward to continuing our work and collaboration with all human rights defenders and the Palestine solidarity movement locally and abroad.
In solidarity, Free Free Palestine,
Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU)
Please see a list of resources (generously provided by COBP (https://www.cobp.resist.ca/ ) and contact us info@paju.org for more information:
Justice Pour les Victimes de Bavures Policières /// Justice for the Victims of Police Killings
http://22octobre.wordpress.com/
Groupe ou initiative contre la brutalité policière
Forum contre la violence policière et l’impunité
http://forumcontrelaviolencepoliciere.wordpress.com
la C.R.A.P. Coalition contre la Répression et les Abus Policiers
http://www.lacrap.org
Montréal-Nord Républik
Groupe politique de Montréal-Nord
http://montrealnordrepublik.blogspot.ca/
Medi MilitantEs et ManifestantEs – Québec
Information pour les manifestantEs et les médi-militantEs : comment se préparer et rester en sécurité lors des manifs. Infos sur les tactiques policières, les armes de la police et les problèmes météorologiques.
http://medimilitante.blogspot.ca/
Flics assassins
http://flicsassassins.wordpress.com/
Résistons ensemble
Réseau français contre les violences policières et sécuritaires
http://resistons.lautre.net
La Solide
Une initiative faisant suite à la grève étudiante de 2012. Il a pour but d’être un outil de communication afin de se garder informé-e-s des prochaines dates de comparution, des actions de solidarité ainsi que des autres luttes qui nous entourent. Car, la grève de 2012 était bien plus qu’une combat contre la hausse des frais de scolarité.
http://lasolide.info
Comité Automne du Travail du Sexe (CATS-SWAC)
https://cats-swac-mtl.org/
stop repression
http://www.stop-repression.be/
Ligue des droits et libertés
http://liguedesdroits.ca
Observatoire sur les profilages
https://www.observatoiredesprofilages.ca/
Association des juristes progressistes
http://ajpquebec.org/page_id=137
Excited Delirium
Un blog sur les tasers
http://www.excited-delirium.com/
Truth not Tasers
Actualités sur les Tasers au Canada et ailleurs
http://truthnottasers.blogspot.ca/
Anarchist Black Cross
http://www.abcf.net/
Camover Montreal
https://mtlcounter-info.org/camover-montreal/
CPSM (Comité Permanent de Soutient aux Manifestant-es)
https://manif.co/
Montreal Counter-Information
https://mtlcounter-info.org/actualites/
Copwatch
L’Équipe de surveillance des interventions policières
http://esipuqam.wordpress.com/
Liste du SSPVM
Groupe de partage de photos de policiers et de matricules. C’est utile pour retrouver un policier contre qui vous voudriez porter plainte ou pour le/la poursuivre au civil
https://www.facebook.com/groups/432794700111889/ Équipe de surveillance des interventions policières
surveillance et documentation des interventions policières
https://esipuqam.wordpress.com/
