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As they’ve for months now, lots of of individuals rallied in downtown Ottawa Saturday to protest the Israeli invasion of Gaza and to display their help for the Palestinian folks.
Marching by a gentle spring drizzle, the demonstrators marched in a block-long column up Elgin Road and into the ByWard Market, earlier than returning to rally in entrance of the Canadian Human Rights Monument.
Escorted by Ottawa police, the demonstrators paused at main intersections for a number of minutes at a time, briefly blocking site visitors earlier than transferring alongside.
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Outdoors the Prime Minister’s Workplace, demonstrators let unfastened smoke canisters that crammed the air with a crimson and inexperienced haze.
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Saturday’s crowd in Ottawa was loud and disruptive, however usually orderly because the marchers banged drums and waved dozens of the inexperienced, white, crimson and black Palestinian flags.
It was the primary such demonstration because the Ottawa police hate and bias crime unit launched an investigation after complaints final weekend of hateful and antisemitic chants by a few of the demonstrators that glorified the Oct. 7 Hamas terror assault on Israel that killed some 1,200 folks. “Our resistance assaults are proof that we’re nearly free,” a person may be heard saying within the video from the protest final weekend
“Oct. 7 is proof that we’re nearly free. Lengthy stay Oct. 7, lengthy stay the resistance, lengthy stay the intifada, lengthy stay each type of resistance.”
Threats of violence and different illegal conduct usually are not protected below the Constitution of Rights and Freedoms, which enshrines Canadians’ proper to free meeting.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Chief Pierre Poilievre have each condemned the glorification of the Oct. 7 assaults.
“There’s a distinction between peaceable protest and hateful intimidation,” Trudeau wrote on X, previously Twitter.
“It’s unconscionable to glorify the antisemitic violence and homicide perpetrated by Hamas on Oct. 7. This rhetoric has no place in Canada. None.”
With information from The Canadian Press
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