By Chris Cook
Engler’s arrest comes at a time of increasingly oppressive measures taken by police against Palestinian solidarity throughout the social democracies of the West.
Thursday morning, February 20, 2025, Yves Engler presented himself to Montreal police for arrest, as ordered. Though facing multiple charges, the Canadian author, journalist, and activist had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be bailed out in time to spend the weekend with his wife and young children. But that wasn’t to be.
Engler’s bail was denied Thursday evening without cause given, and again on Friday when he refused to agree to a gag order forbidding him to write about his ordeal. He writes,
“…(T)he officer told my lawyer she wants to impose a condition for my release saying that I’m not allowed to discuss the case. That is a flagrant violation of my freedom of expression, but is presumably designed to protect the police officer, Kurtz and her legal team from embarrassment.”
Initially, Engler was charged with “harassment and indecent communication” for his response to unelicited tweets on his X timeline from Canadian Zionist media personality, Dahlia Kurtz, (police say Engler describes Kurtz as a “genocide supporter” and “fascist”; accusations he readily admits are accurate).
Subsequently, Montreal police added charges, alleging Engler’s articles detailing his arrest by them and published at the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, along with an email letter campaign soliciting support for his release, constitute a threat.
You can’t make this up. Initially the Montreal police accused me of harassing an anti-Palestinian media personality because I posted about Israel’s genocide. Now they are charging me for harassing the police for writing about the charges levelled against me.
At 9:30 AM tomorrow… pic.twitter.com/xRajDQfLAX— Yves Engler (@EnglerYves) February 20, 2025
Specifically, the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) cites “intimidation, harassment, harassing communication and “entrave” or interference” towards its arresting officer. As of writing, the SPVM has released no more information or replied to requests for comment.
Reporting for the University of Windsor Law’s ‘Jurist News’, Pitasanna Shanmugathas quotes Senator for British Columbia, Yuen Pau Woo’s letter of support for Engler at ActionNetwork. In it, Senator Woo says he supports Yves’ right to denounce Israel’s genocide in Gaza and to “call out” those aiding and abetting its crimes there adding,
“It is incumbent on the police to explain the grounds for any charges laid against Mr. Engler and to demonstrate that his rights are not being infringed. To compound the charges against him because he has shared information about his plight is abusive.”
Thousands agree. By Saturday night, two days after his arrest, the online petitions site, ActionNetwork tallied nearly 10,000 letters of support for Engler, as well as a recorded statement of support coming from tireless Palestine defender and former Pink Floyd member, Roger Waters who says,
“Let’s hope this awful nightmare of crucifying people who stand up for human rights goes away soon. But until it does, we must stand shoulder to shoulder…Yves I’m with you all the way, brother.”
FREE @EnglerYves. HE is RIGHT. @DahliaKurtz and ISRAEL and GENOCIDE are WRONG. ✊🏼🇵🇸 #FreeYvesEngler pic.twitter.com/MIXJ54yiqB
— Roger Waters ✊ (@rogerwaters) February 22, 2025
The arrest has also been picked up by alternative media across Canada and in the United States, where all are concerned for Engler’s welfare and the conditions of his detention. Green Party of Quebec leader, Alex Tyrrell writes on X, that during his video-linked bail hearing, Engler appeared without his eyeglasses, and was repeatedly interrupted by the judge before being hustled out of the box. Tyrrell says,
“When Yves asked why his release was opposed, the judge dismissed his question, saying it was at the prosecutor’s discretion, and advised him not to speak.”
Those were Engler’s last words heard from detention. Before reporting to authorities though, Engler addressed the media on the charges outside the police station saying,
“This is obviously an attack against freedom of expression but really what it is is a use of the policing and legal system to target someone that opposes the Canadian government’s complicity in a genocidal rampage by Israel that’s left at least 100,000 people killed in Gaza.”
Adding,
“Over the past 15 months [Dahlia] Kurtz has become a leader in Canada’s fascist movement, posting incessantly about purported Jewish victimhood and the anti-genocide ‘mob’ who should be ‘deported’. A compulsive liar, Kurtz openly calls for state violence against those challenging Canadian complicity in genocide.”
Still incommunicado, Engler’s father and co-author of the book, ‘The Ugly Canadian’ took to his son’s X feed Friday to provide an update on Yves’ situation.
Gary Engler writes,
“Yves will have a bail hearing Monday 9am. He has called for supporters to attend. The hearing will determine whether or not Yves will be freed pending trial and if he will be allowed to write in detail about what is happening to him including naming the complaint and the police officer who have accused him of harassment. He has no interest in naming the police officer but insists that he should be able to name the influencer who regularly publishes hateful anti-Palestinian content online.”
Engler’s arrest comes at a time of increasingly oppressive measures taken by police against Palestinian solidarity throughout the social democracies of the West.
These measures often invoke anti-terrorism statutes, like Section 12 of Britain’s Terrorism Act 2000, invoked to hold journalists, Kit Klarenberg in May of 2023, and Richard Medhurst in August of last year when arriving at UK airports Luton and Heathrow respectively, and to mine their communication devices for information. Section 12 was also cited in the SWAT-styled assault on English activist, Sarah Wilkinson’s home and the sexagenarian’s violent arrest.
Yves’ father here, providing an update about Yves who is currently detained at the Bordeaux jail until at least Monday.
Today the prosecutors refused to free him unless he would agree not to speak publicly about the case including naming directly or indirectly the influencer who… pic.twitter.com/8z9aIc7796
— Yves Engler (@EnglerYves) February 21, 2025
Medhurst’s Vienna home was also raided just two weeks ago, it appears, in service of British intelligence agencies; while American journalist and publisher of The Electronic Intifada (EI), Ali Abunimah was roughly taken into custody by Swiss authorities on January 25 and held, much as Engler is now, with no avenues of communication to the outside world. Abunimah’s UK-based EI colleague, Asa Winstanley too experienced harassment and the seizure of his computers and other devices. He quotes Abunimah in an article about his arrest and deportation from Switzerland saying,
“I can only conclude that my unlawful imprisonment was intended to suppress freedom of expression by preventing me from speaking openly about the genocide in Palestine, as well as to punish me for views I’ve expressed in the past that someone in power did not like.”
And then there’s Germany, whose draconian laws suppressing pro-Palestinian activism, including entry bans can be applied across the Schengen Zone.
Tomorrow the Montreal police will arrest me for posting to social media against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Today I received a phone call from a Montreal police officer by the last name of Crivello. She asked me to come to a downtown police station where I will be charged for… pic.twitter.com/7fcheB20To— Yves Engler (@EnglerYves) February 19, 2025
Pro-Palestine activism suppression may be the case with Engler in Canada too, but it could be more than that. As well as writing a baker’s dozen of books highly critical of Canadian foreign policy, (the only person in the country to have hammered on this theme as persistently) Yves is too a disruptor of the first order, literally.
Engler and activist lawyer and journalist, Dimitri Lascaris founded the Disruption Network, and under its rubric have embarrassed both public officials and Canada’s mainstream news organizations with ambush interventions asking normally media-cosseted representatives pointed questions on issues like aid to Israel’s genocidal campaign in Palestine. Few of the country’s political and business elite are likely upset to hear of his troubles with the law, but their Schadenfreude may be short-lived.
Talking about his arrest in Switzerland, Ali Abunimah expressed surprise the local powers that being there would amplify what would have been a small teach-in on Palestinian solidarity and resistance into a national scandal and international embarrassment for the normally politically low-profile Swiss. Likewise, with nearly 10,000 signatures as of this writing, and a growing chorus of outrage, the petite bureaucrats behind Montreal’s arrest of Yves Engler may soon come to rue their counter-constitutional transgression.
As it stands, Yves will again appear before the court on Monday, February 25, and as Gary Engler says,
“If you support Yves please come to the Palais de justice at 1 Notre Dame East in room 3.12 on Monday morning at 9:00am. You can also support his work by donating here. Please do what you can to draw attention to this case. #FreeYvesEngler.”
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, where Yves Engler has appeared as a guest numerous times. Archives at GRadio.Substack.com, GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.
Thanks to Pitasanna Shanmugathas.
